Tyler Childers is an outstanding singer and songwriter, and he heads a pretty killer band to boot. He also knows how to make his albums feel unique. Purgatory and Country Squire positioned him as a breakout roots-country star. His 2020 release Long Violent History veered sharply from that direction, a mostly instrumental set of protest songs against racism. Last year’s triple LP, Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (ND review), was a fascinating journey into the amorphous nature of a song, presenting eight tracks in three different formats.
His new album, the seven-track Rustin’ in the Rain, is a far less challenging or vexing listen than his last two projects. In pre-release materials, he describes it as “a collection of songs I playfully pieced together as if I was pitching a group of songs to Elvis. Some covers, one co-write, and some I even wrote in my best (terrible) Elvis impersonation.” It’s kind of funny to think of Childers centering an album around Elvis cosplay, and while there are definitely moments that evoke Presley’s earlier years at Sun Records, Rustin’ in the Rain is a bit deeper than that.
