video review: 'with love from brushy mountain' by matt woods

Well, this came together quickly, but overall I'm happy with this album. Not a lot to really say about the good albums, but it makes my job that much easier.

Next up will probably be Blu, so stay tuned!

album review: 'with love from brushy mountain' by matt woods

I think it's safe to say that any critic of any stripe has pet peeves of some kind. For me, almost two hundred reviews in, they should be obvious for any long time viewer. I don't like Autotune or reverb used when it's not needed, I don't like it when rappers rhyme words with themselves, I find unjustified macho posturing to get tiresome, I goddamn hate the chipmunk voice effect, you get the drill.

But believe it or not, there are also a few elements that will tend to win me over almost immediately when it comes to music - if you're looking for areas that some would brand as 'bias', it'd be here. Musically, it comes to well-composed melody lines, rollicking guitar riffs, organ riffs, that peculiar synthesizer tone that Arjen Lucassen uses on nearly all of his projects, well-harmonized vocals, a perfectly executed dramatic crescendo, you get the picture. But beyond that, there are subjects that tend to draw my attention as well, both within and across genres.

And a decidedly odd one is the presence of prisons in country music. Brought most to the forefront by Johnny Cash with his legendary live album At Folsom Prison, to me it strikes a potent balance between the rough-edged flavour of outlaw country and the confrontations of morality and often mortality that rest at the heart of the genre's best material. Maybe it's the addition of real consequences that adds dramatic stakes, but if I hear about a record featuring prisons prominently in country music, more often than not I'm going to dig it up. 

So when the country underground started to buzz about the new album from relative unknown Matt Woods titled With Love From Brushy Mountain, named for a famous penitentiary that once housed the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., I knew I had to check it out eventually. Tennessee native Matt Woods was a relative unknown until his breakout single release last year with 'Deadman's Blues' - was there any way he could live up to the acclaim that song got?