Spring is in full bloom, and new music is exploding just like your seasonal allergies. This spring brings a bumper crop of good stuff: a New Orleans eight-piece in full swagger, a Texan outlaw closing out a trilogy, an English country-rock quartet chasing thunderstorms, and a handful of standout songwriters reckoning with darkness, devotion, and the women who paved the way. Read about the tunes, and cue up a playlist of the season’s top tracks below.
“I Hate Nashville”
Ashley Monroe
One of Nashville’s best songwriters gets real about her love/hate relationship with Music City. Monroe has had her share of wins over her twenty-three-year career, but the constant grind of trying to “make it big” has been soul-crushing in a town dominated by mostly male gatekeepers. It’s a brutally honest take—with a beautiful melody to boot—that anyone with a dream can relate to.
“Looking for a Feeling”
Waylon Payne
The godson of Waylon Jennings—and guitarist in Willie Nelson’s band—breaks a half-decade silence with a Pam Tillis co-write that earns its outlaw pedigree honestly. Payne’s weather-beaten baritone curls around lyrics that hurt in all the right places, the kind of slow-burning ache only a writer who’s lived inside a song can summon.
“In the Middle of It”
Hiss Golden Messenger
MC Taylor, the frontman of the North Carolina roots rockers, calls this his “Santa Fe song,” scribbled in a corner room of a New Mexico hotel room, and the lead single from May’s I’m People shimmers with desert dust and gospel-hued warmth. It’s a deep-pocket Americana groove that nudges you toward swaying in the face of it all.
“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”
Ella Langley
The Alabama firebrand and breakout country star resurrects the J.D. Miller–penned song that made Kitty Wells the first solo woman to top the country chart back in 1952. Backed by a weeping pedal steel and a two-step kick, Langley turns a seventy-three-year-old diss track into Saturday-night gospel.
“No Springtime”
Allison Russell with Joy Oladokun & Julie Williams
Fresh off her Broadway run as Persephone in Hadestown, Russell summons two sisters in song for a wistful ode to sitting with the blues rather than running from them. Russell’s dynamic range, Oladokun’s grounded alto, and Williams’s serene sweetness braid into something both mournful and defiant: “Live your blues,” the song urges. “Don’t wallow and loop.”
“Heart Stop”
The Revivalists
Despite a highly successful career and devoted fan base, the New Orleans eight-piece often flies under the radar. But on “Heart Stop,” the first single from the band’s upcoming album, Get It Honest, the full ensemble is flexing: David Shaw’s soul-wracked howl, Rob Ingraham’s sax, Ed Williams’s pedal steel, and a Crescent City rhythm section built for swaying arms. “Heart Stop” is a sweaty slow burner that earns its title—and likely an incendiary live staple in the making.
“Twisters”
Brown Horse
The Norwich, U.K. quartet, who call their sound “Slacker Twang,” swing for the bleachers on the lead single from April’s Total Dive—a colossal country-rocker built on shimmering pedal steel, swirling organ, and Patrick Turner’s fatalistic drawl. “I hope a whip of lightning cuts me right in two,” he moans, less melodrama than an outright prayer for release.
“Lonesome Dove”
Charley Crockett
The prolific Texan closes out his Sagebrush Trilogy—three concept albums in a year, all co-produced with Shooter Jennings—with Age of the Ram, and this early highlight sets fictional outlaw Billy McLane galloping out of town with water in his girl’s eyes. The chorus alone earns Crockett his spurs: “It’s a Coke and Pepsi world / They can have the whole thing, girl.”
“Ice on the Road”
Pynk Beard
Also known as Sebastian Kole, the writer behind No. 1s for Alessia Cara and Alicia Keys, the Birmingham preacher’s son steps fully into country following his debut EP last fall with an urgent protest song that indicts with Sunday-morning weight. “A lot of money in his pocket / A little blood on his hands,” he sings.
“In the Pines”
Renée Fleming and Béla Fleck featuring Dolly Parton
An opera superstar, a bluegrass legend, and a country icon walk into a studio…and come up with a scintillating take on one of the classics of the American Songbook. More serene and less haunting than the versions associated with Lead Belly and Nirvana, it’s no less impactful, especially when Fleming’s and Parton’s voices mesh seamlessly.
Listen to Our Playlist
Matt Hendrickson has been a contributing editor for Garden & Gun since 2008. A former staff writer at Rolling Stone, he’s also written for Fast Company and the New York Times and currently moonlights as a content producer for Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service in Athens, Ohio.
