Of late, any number of pop artists – Gaga, Miley, Justin Timberlake – have made country-adjacent albums, perhaps as rootsy succour in difficult times, or perhaps as heartland-courting endeavours for the Trumpian era. Country singer Sturgill Simpson, meanwhile, won a Grammy for his last record, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth (2016), which champed at the bit of the genre, employing retro soul heroes the Dap-Kings as backing band, and covering Nirvana. This one bucks even harder. Simpson was once a navy man stationed in Japan, which partially explains why Sound & Fury comes with an accompanying Netflix manga film. The album, meanwhile, was written in the echo of Simpson spinning Black Sabbath, Eminem and the Cars on repeat.
Enthrallingly, it often sounds a bit like a Queens of the Stone Age album produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys: rock, broadly, but funky with it, as on Best Clockmaker on Mars. A Good Look stretches country radio furthest: it’s not far off disco, with a mosquito-y synth line played loud, to frighten the horses even more. Make Art Not Friends powers up with an analogue synth interlude that slowly beefs up into scorched-earth power-pop. Throughout, a commitment to heartfelt songcraft remains the most “country” thing about Sound & Fury.
