This week’s crop of new country tunes includes music from several newly-dropped projects. Luke Combs is previewing his upcoming album with the new three-song EP The Prequel. Meanwhile, Carter Faith releases her debut album Cherry Valley and The Red Clay Strays issue a musical plea for unity and understanding.
Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of some of the best country, bluegrass and/or Americana songs of the week below.
Luke Combs, “15 Minutes”
This ballad from Combs’s The Prequel EP takes a surprising turn, starting out to seem like a typical musician-on-the-road, calling home to his family type of song. But quickly, as he sings of cinder block rooms, orange jumpsuits and a line of people waiting to use the phone, it’s clear this is from the perspective of someone serving time and using his 15 minutes of call time to focus on his family’s life outside of the prison walls. “I’m just tryin’ to make the best of the rest of this life sentence,” he sings. In the process, Combs’ burnished, gravelly voice lends further gravitas to the song’s sentiments, making it one of this stadium headliner’s strongest songs to date.
Carter Faith, Cherry Valley
Across the 15 tracks on her debut full-length album Cherry Valley, Faith distills a kaleidoscope of small-town vignettes, colorful characters and raw emotions. She wraps her smoky voice around lyrics of jealousy on the barn burner “Betty,” sinks into pedal steel-soaked defiance on “Burn My Memory” and over lush stringwork, pleads longingly with a lover for a few more fleeting moments together before the relationship fades into ex-lover territory (“Changed”). Whether the vibe is slinky and sultry or tender, the entire project feels like an instant classic, melding retro production and instrumentation with Faith’s singular perspectives.
Red Clay Strays, “People Hatin’”
The Red Clay Strays wraps its signature captivating searing rock style around a message that distills a sense of frustration over the current anger-filled culture, one in which the band sees “everybody goin’ crazy/ Every time they go and disagree.” Lead singer Brandon Coleman, as usual, puts forth a commanding, soulful vocal that encapsulates the lyric’s seething exasperation and longing for less division. Coleman wrote the song with Andrew Bishop, Dave Cobb, Matthew Coleman, John Hall and Zach Rishel.
Ole 60, “Smokestack Town”
Ole 60 follows the group’s breakthrough hit “smoke & a light” with its debut album, a project soaked in unvarnished rock edges and vivid storytelling. The project’s title track details a return to hometown roots after a lengthy time away, and taking comfort that the small town “ain’t really ever changed/ Since my parents’ parents gave ’em names.” The hard-driving percussion and grounded, heartland rock vibe give this song a timeless feel, with a well-worn grit sure to connect with any listener that’s been away from home a little too long.
Caroline Jones, “All the Things”
On her latest, singer-songwriter and Zac Brown Band member Jones sings about broadening the concept of what success can look like and uses the song to praise her partner for being a steady support and champion. She starts out this uptempo, sunny track by recalling the grind of her early days working “Out here against the suits and bricks/ Where the messages and the drinks are mixed.” From there, she celebrates the balance she and her partner have found in career and family, saying, “With you I can do all the things.”
