Traveller [LP] in Bloomington, MN

Like many country troubadours,
Chris Stapleton
cut his teeth as a songwriter in Nashville, churning out tunes that wound up hits in the hands of others.
Kenny Chesney
brought "Never Wanted Anything More" to number one and
Darius Rucker
had a hit with "Come Back Song," but those associations suggest
Stapleton
would toe a mainstream line when he recorded his 2015 debut,
Traveller
. This new release, however, suggests something rougher and rowdier -- an
Eric Church
without a metallic fixation or a
Sturgill Simpson
stripped of arty psychedelic affectations. Something closer to a
Jamey Johnson
, in other words, but where
Johnson
often seems weighed down by the mantle of a latter-day outlaw,
is rather lithe as he slides between all manners of southern styles. Some of this smoothness derives from
's supple singing. As the rare songwriter-for-hire who also has considerable performance chops,
is sensitive to the needs of an individual song, something that is evident when he's covering "Tennessee Whiskey" -- a
Dean Dillon
&
Linda Hargrove
tune popularized by
George Jones
and
David Allan Coe
in the early '80s -- lending the composition a welcome smolder, but the strength of
lies in how he can similarly modulate the execution of his originals. He has a variety of songs here, too, casually switching gears between bluegrass waltz, Southern rockers, crunching blues, soulful slow-burners, and swaggering outlaw anthems -- every one of them belonging to a tradition, but none sounding musty due to
's casualness. Never once does he belabor his range, nor does he emphasize the sharply sculpted songs. Everything flows naturally, and that ease is so alluring upon the first spin of
that it's not until repeated visits that the depth of the album becomes apparent. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine