We recently received several CD’s in the mail from artists hoping for a review of their new albums.  We take music reviews very seriously, and often take hours to craft a review for a single album, which can be taxing as we pick apart and analyze each and every song to give it a score and an album average. Due to time constraints and maintaining our own sanity, we are going to list these albums here with a quick overall analysis of each one.

All Suited Up by The Kody Norris Show – This was an excellent Bluegrass album that any Bluegrass fan would enjoy listening to, driven by great instrumentation.

Bridges and Backroads by Jerry Salley – This was another solid Bluegrass album that was more lyrically driven.

I’ll Keep it Country by Cory Keefe – The album title sets itself up with high expectations that he most certainly lives up to!  We are pushing this directly to finalist status for Album of the Year.  This is pure country gold.  When listening to music, you often tend to try to compare a new artist to an established artist that they remind you of.  Keefe reminds you of so many, but it is hard to pick just one.  Some names that come to mind that he should be considered a peer of vocally and stylistically include Randy Travis, Easton Corbin, Joe Nichols, Josh Turner…even George Strait.  If Nashville has any credibility left, he will be the next big thing.    He even was able to land a duet with Lorrie Morgan on this album!  We had already added the first 2 song releases from this album to our 2021’s Best New Country Music Spotify Playlist, so we were glad to hear that the rest of the album was just as good.  We look forward to adding more of the tracks to our playlist as he releases them as singles!

Kaleidoscope by Hilary Scott – Not to be confused with Hillary Scott of Lady A fame, this artist’s 5-track album was more of a pop album than country that did not really move the needle for us as there really wasn’t anything “country” about them.

Our Places by Folks Like Them – This is a very good album that flows back and forth from Country to Bluegrass.  We previously added “The River Still Flows” to our 2021’s Best New Country Music Spotify Playlist.  Definitely worth a listen!

Waiting out the Storm by Billy Droze – Another good Bluegrass album worth a listen!

We really just focus on Country Music here at Hometown Country Music, but we do consider Bluegrass to be historically intertwined with Country Music, so we felt compelled to include them in today’s post. 

Kelsea Ballerini’s album ballerini is a disorganized mess of good and bad music.  On one hand, it has some good country songs, most notably “Half of My Hometown” which features Kenny Chesney as the background vocalist.  On the other hand, half of the tracks are not country at all.  At this point in her career, it’s time for Kelsea to decide if she wants to be a pop artist or a country artist.  She has been leaning more and more pop lately, and she very well could explode into the next Taylor Swift if she does.

However, she has the tools to be the next Carrie Underwood should she decide to focus more on being a country artist.  I get that in today’s blended world, the lines between genres have become so blurred that pop music is now country music, rap music is now pop music, and country music is now Texas/Red Dirt music.  Regardless of how music is classified these days, this album was hit or miss.  Overall, the album scored 6.8 on a scale of 1-10, meaning it’s a decent country album.

Here’s how we scored the tracks:

• Overshare – 5.9
• Club – 6.2
• Homecoming Queen – 7.7
• The Other Girl – 6.4
• Love Me Like a Girl – 7.3
• Love and Hate – 7.3
• Bragger – 5.8
• Hole in the Bottle – 7.7
• Half of My Hometown – 8.4
• The Way I Used To – 6.2
• Needy – 6.5
• A Country Song – 6.8
• LA – 6.7

For more Music Reviews and info on how we score music, click here.

Today we put Drew Haley’s new solo project Wildflower (EP) through our scoring system.  Released on October 2nd, the five-track EP showcases the strong vocals of the accomplished singer/writer/actress, who also stars in the all-female vocal group The Highway Women!

Here is how we scored the tracks on the EP:

• Wildflower – 7.5
• Fool to Remember – 7.4
• Mood Swing – 6.9
• Listen to the Sound – 7.2
• Whole Wide World – 7.1

Total Album Sore – 7.2 = Good country album!

HCM Scoring Scale:

• 9.0-10 = Great country song/album
• 8.0-8.9 = Very good country song/album
• 7.0-7.9 = Good country song/album
• 6.0-6.9 = Decent country song/album
• 5.0-5.9 = Average country song/album
• 4.0-4.9 = Below average country song/album
• 0-3.9 = Not a good country song/album

49 Winchester is an “Appalachian Country Soul” band out of Russell County, VA that recently released their album III (October 2nd).   We gave the album a listen to put it through our scoring system, and the verdict is in…it scored as a decent country album, coming in with a score of 6.85 on a scale of 1-10.

While the album scored well for the recording quality, vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation; the deeper we got into it, the more we realized there wasn’t much variety to the overall sound of the tracks.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but they put all their eggs into one basket with their sound.  It was pretty mellow, with the 10-track album highlighted by the songs “The Road Home,” “Long Hard Life,” “Hays, Kansas,” and “Never Did Love Me.”  Overall there were no stinkers on the album so we would recommend it as something worth checking out!

HCM Scoring Scale:

• 9.0-10 = Great country song/album
• 8.0-8.9 = Very good country song/album
• 7.0-7.9 = Good country song/album
• 6.0-6.9 = Decent country song/album
• 5.0-5.9 = Average country song/album
• 4.0-4.9 = Below average country song/album
• 0-3.9 = Not a good country song/album

How great is the new David Adam Byrnes album Neon Town, released earlier this month on October 2nd?  The final track on the album is an iconic country cover that we love, yet still had the “lowest” score of any song on the album when we went song-by-song to rate them.  Yes, it’s that good from beginning to end.  Each track scored better than a classic!  We haven’t heard an album that we’ve loved this much since Aaron Watson’s Red Bandana was released last year.  There must be something in the whiskey down there in Texas!

If you’ve listened to any Texas/Red Dirt Country in the past year, you probably are already familiar with several of these songs, as he has released a few of them that have gone on to be hits such as the title track “Neon Town,” “Beer Bucket List,” “I Can Give You One,” and his brand new single “Old School.”  Despite already having released several singles from this album, he has at least two more monster hits that he could release with our highest scoring songs “In My Arms” and “I Ain’t Seen It Yet.”

The album credits David Adam Byrnes as a writer on most of the songs, which features a traditional country sound reminiscent of the late 90’s mainstream country music.  Speaking of Aaron Watson, rumor is he is the one that gave Byrnes the push to move to Texas to further his music career which had stalled in Nashville.

Overall, we graded the album at a whopping 8.6 out of 10 on our strict scoring scale.  Check out our song-by-song scores below, where the consistency was unprecedented in one of our reviews.  Even the good albums usually have a stinker song or two.  This one?  Pure Country Music Gold.  We have a front-runner for Album of the Year in 2020.

1. Neon Town – 8.7
2. I Can Give You One – 8.3
3. She Only Wanted Flowers – 8.4
4. Old School – 8.5
5. Signs – 8.3
6. Tequila, Salt & Time – 8.4
7. Beer Bucket List – 8.5
8. In My Arms – 9.5
9. I Ain’t Seen It Yet – 9.0
10. Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music) – 8.1

HCM Scoring Scale:

• 9.0-10 = Great country song/album
• 8.0-8.9 = Very good country song/album
• 7.0-7.9 = Good country song/album
• 6.0-6.9 = Decent country song/album
• 5.0-5.9 = Average country song/album
• 4.0-4.9 = Below average country song/album
• 0-3.9 = Not a good country song/album