Ian Fisher yearns for the Nashville of past legends, not the vibrant one that still exists in the town's spirited venues. Fisher romanticizes the past, but he needn't bother. Nashville is still an awesome place full of great music.
Pearl Charles' art doesn't offer easy resolutions to internal or external crises on Magic Mirror, but as she works through her ideas, she leads us to somewhere better.
The North Georgia elements enrich the tales on Calico Jim, but Pony Bradshaw is concerned with the larger questions we all face in the desire to find meaning and purpose in life.
In 2020, Americana artists empathetically dealt with the things that bind us together and keep us apart. The albums on this list encourage hope for the future based on a belief in the human spirit.
Because Alive was recorded before the recent pandemic, there is something strangely dated about the whole concept of performing before a live audience. As a result, there is sort of a time capsule quality to it.
The frontman of "the most fucked-up country band in Nashville" returns Lambchop to their roots on TRIP. Each group member picked a classic song and was bandleader for a day, resulting in a record that reveals Lambchop's core influences in striking new light.
"The Divided States of America" relates directly to the US Election Day. As Paul Simon would say, it's a modern desultory philippic about the state of the nation.
Given the turmoil of the era, you might expect Lydia Loveless to lean into the anger, amplifying the electric guitar side of her cowpunk. Instead, she created a personal record with a full range of moods, still full of her typical wit.
On Waiting Out the Storm, Jeremy Ivey apologizes for present society's destruction of the environment and wonders if racism still exists in the future and whether people still get high and have mental health issues.
The Lone Bellow's live performance was a pleasurable distraction in the middle of a pandemic. But I had forgotten how to attend a ticketed concert.
