Dale Watson, “Call Me Lucky”: On the easy-rolling “Tupelo Mississippi and a ‘57 Fairlane,” Dale Watson declares, “They don’t make ‘em like that no more.”
You could say the same about Watson himself. He’s an unrepentant country throwback who nevertheless has stood the test of time. Possessor of a classic baritone and smooth drawl, the Alabama-born, Texas-bred singer and songwriter likes to pay tribute to the greats who inspired him. On “The Dumb Song,” he not only replicates Johnny Cash’s boom-chicka rhythm, he also employs Cash’s original drummer, W.S. “Fluke” Holland. And he invokes the Man in Black himself directly on the ballad “Johnny and June,” a terrific duet with co-writer Celine Lee.
But Watson’s main appeal is that he is thoroughly himself. Throughout “Call Me Lucky,” with its honky-tonkers and shuffles and hints of R&B and mariachi, Watson again puts his own stamp on traditional country forms and shows that, like a ‘57 Fairlane, in the right hands they still have plenty of mileage left in them.
— Nick Cristiano, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Offset, “Father of 4”: As one-third of Migos, Atlanta’s flashiest mumble-rap trio, Offset has been an active participant in the ups and downs of sex, drugs, love, trap and hip-hop. So much so that it made him an absentee dad and very nearly single when his new wife — fellow superstar Cardi B — dumped him for infidelity. Now that they are reunited — along with their 7-month-old daughter, Kulture — Offset has grown wearily ruminative and focused on the man he could have been to his other kids, Jordan, Kody and Kalea. “Father of 4,” his debut solo album, moves away from his pricey product-placement raps and looks back on his life facing time for crimes against the law and the heart.
— A.D. Amorosi, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Sleaford Mods, “Eton Alive”: Sleaford Mods come on with the impudence and intelligence of classic British working-class punk rock. But with a difference: The Nottingham band that has been kicking around for more than a decade are a duo, consisting of vocalist and lyric writer Jason Williamson and musician beat-maker Andrew Feam. The often abrasive attack is consciously in the lineage of first-wave punk — the title track of their 2007 album The Mekon sampled the Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant” — but they’re a band for the digital, hip-hop age.
Williamson’s talk-singing in an East Midlands accent is essentially his own kind of rapping, equal parts Ian Dury and Wu Tang Clan. And Feam’s propulsive, rhythmic backing tracks marry minimalism with head-bobbing dance floor propulsion, plus the occasional kazoo solo. The band — it’s pronounced “Slee-ford” — earned accolades for political commentary in the run-up to Brexit with albums like 2013’s “Austerity Dogs,” but “Eton Alive” doesn’t get bogged down in I-told-you-so polemics. Instead, it takes care to vary the musical moods and mix plenty of smart aleck humor into consumer capitalist critiques like “Into the Payzone” and “Subtraction.”
— Dan DeLuca, The Philadelphia Inquirer
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