The modern country-Americana megastar Max McNown dropped his highly anticipated third album in as many years today! I remember loving his last album last year, so have high hopes for this one too. A couple of the singles I’ve checked out so far are great, so I’m excited to dive in and see what it’s about!
The album starts pretty slow, fittingly, with ‘Slow Down, Slow Down’. Max’s fantastic vocals come over the top of a simple drum beat and guitar chord progression. It builds up before dropping out even more for the first half of the chorus, just being guitar and vocals. It makes it hit even harder when everything explodes back in for the second half, too! It’s a short and sweet track at barely over two and a half minutes, but is beautifully written and the dynamics and production are a real standout point. A great way to open the album!
The chilled out, slower vibes continue through ‘First Born Daughter’, fitting somewhere perfectly between old school Western and modern indie-Americana. It builds a bit more naturally into a bigger, more stadium-filling chorus this time, and it’s one that will be stuck in my head for days to come! It’s a beautiful, heart-felt love song, and a massive early album highlight for me. And what a choice for a single too, although there were quite a few from this release… Great stuff!
I like the rockier intro for single ‘Done For’, it upping the energy and pace a little and being an excellent change of pace. It leads to an absolutely massive chorus that is over as fast as it starts, but is so very memorable. His lyrics are again amazing and his voice fits this sort of style so well, reminding me a little bit of both Kip Moore and Evan Honer simultaneously. It’s another short and sweet track, but we even get some time for a little guitar lead part, which was nice. I like the rockier edge to his sound a lot, and this is a track that easily makes it onto our playlist. If you’re going to check out any track from this album, let it be this one. I’m a little obsessed!
The higher energy continues later in the album through tracks like singles ‘Heart You Didn’t Break’ and ‘Standstill’, ‘Make my Peace’ and ‘Selah’s Song’. The former reminds me of Mumford and Sons in the best way, and is another MASSIVE highlight song. However, all are great songs in their own right, and break up the generally slower pace of the album perfectly, exactly what a release of this length and magnitude needs. It also shows Max’s great range of different sounds and styles, his vocals fitting it all so well, and it’s all fantastically written. They are certainly more of ‘my vibe’ of songs compared to some of the others, as much as I enjoy other tracks on here, and I’d recommend all of them to absolutely anyone!
The other singles, ‘Something to Someone’, ‘World Change Me’, ‘Famous to You’ and ‘Comets’, are all more great choices for pre-release songs, and fantastic representations of Max’s sound and talent. The former is an excellent indie-Americana song, complete with maybe the best chorus on the whole album. ‘Famous to You’ reflects that style perfectly, too. ‘World Change Me’ has a great Western edge to it, and the stomping pace is excellent. Then you have the slower, more ballad-like ‘Comets’, being arguably the best of this pace and style on this release. Don’t get me wrong, there were maybe too many singles for the album, but when it’s this long it makes sense for there to be, and each represent a different part of the album perfectly. And they’re all great songs!
A lot of the other songs on the album are more slower, beautiful songs. They all fit the vibe and tone of the album excellently, and are very good songs in their own right. ‘Isn’t That Love?’ is probably my favourite of the bunch. However, all of them do have a slight album-track feel to them, and there’s just too many of them. I don’t mind a longer album generally, but 17 tracks when a lot of it channels the same sort of vibe and energy is a little much for me. Now, he is a massive name so is clearly doing something right, and there will be plenty of people who love all of these. They’re all well written, well performed and recorded songs, but when put together in the same collection I personally found it a little hard a listen, especially by the end. Still, if you are a fan of Max, they are still well worth a listen! The closer is also beautiful, giving me goosebumps, so there is that! The poem in the middle is phenomenal.
Overall: I certainly had a good time with this album. As I’ve said before, he is an incredibly talented musician and not a single track on here is bad by any stretch. And as I said, if you are already a fan of Max or his general style, you may have a lot of mileage for this release! However, it is a touch too long for me personally. There’s a phenomenal album tucked away in here spread across maybe 10 tracks, but the rest do bog it down, in this writers humble opinion. It’s very much a problem across the country spectrum though, and is probably why I’m not as big a fan of guys like Morgan Wallen and Riley Green. This is a great indie-infused country Americana album, and if you are a fan of the style it is very much worth the time and effort. But it’s not a release I’ll be revisiting in full all too often. It sadly falls just short of his sophomore release.
The Score: 7.5/10