Corbie Hill

Riley Downing loved his grandparents. There is no mistaking the tenderness, the warmth, and the wonder he feels for the bond they shared. It drives “Helen & Gene,” in which Downing turns family lore into a living, breathing narrative of two young people falling for each other. They were on

“I hear it’s warmer than it ought to be / up there at the start of the Mississippi,” Creekbed Carter Hogan sings on “Burn.” “And the evergreens are like candle trees / they’re leaning into the burn.” The third track on Carter’s new Peasants Revolt starts on a tense

“Walk Away,” from Tray Wellington’s new Heart on the Table, is a story song with a foot in at least two traditions.  “More focused on fame from an internet flex / versus feeling the pain in our hearts, we deflect / with pictures meant to take us from our lives’ weights,

American Aquarium's “4x60” finds a younger BJ Barham in the back seat of a Chevy Blazer. The song from the latest American Aquarium record New Ways to Lose is full of “back in the day…” details. For those who remember rural North Carolina in the ‘90s, there’s

Joshua Ray Walker has slowed down enough to feel what he’s feeling. The mid-tempo, pensive “Chasing Sunsets” is spacious and melancholy like a War on Drugs tune. It opens with this Texan disillusioned in Hollywood, setting a rattled, twilit vibe for the rest of the tune. By the

An argument is circular.  So, too, is Ramsey Thornton’s song about one. The chiming fingerstyle guitar, the jazz-educated percussion, and the vocal melodies of “Chase After You” double back on each other, never quite resolving. There’s a clear sense of a damaged relationship circling the drain, neither