On his second album since The Lights From The Chemical Plant, his 2014 breakthrough, Robert Ellis has dubbed himself the Texas Piano Man, and stays true to his word on the album’s 11 songs. Texas Piano Man came out yesterday, and while much of the songwriting is similar to Ellis’ previous honky tonk, singer-songwriter, bar blues output, there’s a lot that’s different as well. In an immaculate white tuxedo and hat, Ellis is a little more swinging, a little more loose, and a little suaver on Texas Piano Man.
On the first song from Betty Who‘s first album away from a major label, she lets us know that this is the Betty Who that she wants us to hear: “I’m feeling like the old me / No, you cannot control me,” she sings in the chorus. After releasing her first two albums, Take Me When You Go in 2014 and The Valley in 2017, through RCA Records, Australian pop singer Jessica Anne Newman has independently released her third, Betty, giving herself the creative freedom to make the old her the new her.
Following his divorce, Hayes Carll released a somber and introspective album, Lovers and Leavers, in 2016, but has now followed it up with some laid-back, upbeat cool country on What It Is. Maybe it’s his fiancé, Allison Moorer, that’s bringing out Carll’s optimistic side in our Trumpian pre-apocalypse ripe with pessimism, she is, after all, one of the album’s co-producers.
You need at least a little bit of swagger to attempt to release a double album, which is lucky, because Ryan Bingham brings a whole ton of it to his sixth studio release, American Love Song, which clocks in at 66 minutes. Bingham uses that time well, bringing us some whiskey-fueled sing-alongs, some political protest songs, and some introspection.
Other albums out today we’re listening to:
California punks SWMRS bring the riffs on Berkeley’s On Fire, their first album since signing with Fueled By Ramen.
The second solo album, Bright Night Flowers, from Fratelli’s frontman Jon Fratelli, has had a weirdly long road to release after having been announced in 2012. It’s been three Fratelli’s albums between when Jon announced the album to when he finally decided to release it.
Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks of the Tedeschi Trucks Band take full advantage of the large ensemble they have built around themselves on their fourth album, Signs.