The Shootouts are as electric as ever on their latest album, Switchback. The title track is an instrumental interlude breaking up the band’s most confident album yet. The rollicking guitars and buoyant trad country rhythm section take us back to matinee Westerns. While the band has always cultivated a retro profile, they’ve never stuck to it slavishly, and Switchback sees them growing into their own skin in many ways.
On Switchback, producer Dan Knobler (Bahamas, Allison Russell, Lake Street Dive) gives the band space to breathe into their many other influences, from punk to surf rock and beyond. The album’s opener, “Trampoline,” and “Just Another Sunday” find the Shootouts sliding into an intimate soul country groove, with Ryan Humbert’s gentle twang floating among puffy guitars, elegant bass lines, and intricate drum lines.
