BMG/BBR Music Group

****1/2

For those who discover this diamond in the rough, they’ll be smitten by Chase Rice’s great songwriting and his rich musical backdrop, dripping with southern-flavoured country-Americana. Perhaps his most musically mature album to date, this is also his rawest and most hopeful, as he searches for meaning in his life in this broken, confusing, and beautiful world. Country music’s good ol’ boy gets back to basics on this more homespun-filtered album. His voice, rough-hewn with just a healthy touch of empathy, is immediately compelling. There’s plenty of substance to this collection of songs about lost chances, regrets, and redemption. His storytelling shines throughout the whole album and a mainly low and slow approach to these tunes, vocally and in the heavy guitar arrangements, serves them well. After all, making a change in your life is a marathon, not a sprint. Brimming with hope, the album practices what it preaches, showcasing the power of slowing down and honing in on life’s tiny, beautiful details. The lustrous production captures Chase’s intense vocal energy and the musical dynamics that lie beneath his vocal performances, as he lends a lived-in comfort to songs about life’s uncertainties. From complex turbo-charged country-rock excursions to the most fundamental country anthems, Chase Rice knows how to set it on fire.

The breathless urgency of Walk That Easy, captures the pure and universal excitement of passionate love in such a dynamic fashion, that you’re immediately ensnared and caught up in the lyrical enthusiasm. Chase’s full-throated vocal brings an immediate, welcome wrinkle, and the band roars, thumps, and burns out of sheer inspiration rather than imitation or even homage. The best country music can always find a fresh way to write about beer, and Chase does just that with Bad Day To Be A Cold Beer. Culled from a brief conversation at a golf club, a concise, less-than-three-minute gem, it boasts a clever take on beer songs, with a catchy barroom hook, and early Eric Church production. It’s Chase’s earnest delivery that sells it all, however. It's a fitting encore for closing time at the bar. 

It's not that often that a first listen to a song stops me dead in my tracks and compels me to listen right to the end, then play it again, and again. Oklahoma (featuring the Read Southall Band) is the complete package. Voice, song, guitar work and musical arrangement are solid, eclectic, refreshing, and well-crafted….. Chase somehow channels that haunting spirit of the Wild West … the scenarios portrayed in those classic spaghetti cowboy films. The music surges with an unexpected energy, just wait for the song’s finale to experience it’s amazing emotion.   

The thirteen songs showcase Chase’s voice perfectly. He’s especially expressive on Key West And Colorado, as he brings this song about new beginnings to life with his own emotions flowing through each note and lyric. It’s found again in the tender reflection of Bench Seat, a moving song based on a good friend’s life being saved by the unconditional love of his dog. Those old-fashioned sentiments reflect certain truths and charms that are often brushed over these days. Blending his profound songwriting and soothing voice has proved to be a winning combination for Chase Rice. I Hate Cowboys, is not really a dislike of cowboys, but a song fueled by jealousy and the threat of the handsome Lothario, who strolls nonchalantly into a bar and sweeps every woman in the place off their feet.  The theme of All Dogs Go To Hell, is in the same vein as George Strait’s lovelorn Ocean Front Property. The whole track is beautifully relatable, despondent, and heartbreakingly familiar, displaying a homespun charm. If there’s a scrap of emotion somewhere in a song, Chase Rice finds it and milks it convincingly.

www.chaserice.com

January 2023