video review: 'country squire' by tyler childers

Yeah, I wanted to like this a lot more than I did... eh, it happens.

On the plus side, I found a surprise country album that actually dropped the same day that wound up being way more up my alley - stay tuned!

album review: 'country squire' by tyler childers

You know, I keep looking back on the last two years of Patreon scheduling with some degree of exasperation - nothing against you guys, a huge part of the problem was me taking on way too much without a clear way of focusing or managing it, but it also meant that I just missed covering acts that you'd think would have been on my radar. And when you build a reputation for covering a lot of indie country and for some reason you don't cover an act who is building a ton of hype and groundswell... well, I'm not sure how many cared, but I certainly felt exasperated about it.

Such was the case with Purgatory, the long-awaited sophomore album from Kentucky native Tyler Childers that was released in 2017 that caught the indie country scene by storm, thanks mostly to a defiantly country palette full of ragged fiddle and a notable production credit from Sturgill Simpson. It was loose and raw and sleazy but in the right way, rife with flavour that just felt a step away from greatness for me thanks to feeling a bit underwritten and meandering at points - good thematic cohesion and it did grow on me with repeated listens, but it probably wouldn't have made my year-end list in 2017, but also Childers was definitely someone worth keeping an eye on. And his buzz caught fire in a big way, nabbing him a major label deal on RCA on the condition he'd maintain artistic freedom - which to me was a very positive sign, all the more evidence that any courting of Nashville radio is something the indie scene just doesn't care about; hell, that album cover should make that plain enough! So okay, let's make up for some lost time here, what did Tyler Childers deliver on Country Squire?