Make no mistake this is a country album, a no-nonsense, old fashioned honest to god working-man’s country record. And it’s as fine a one as you will hear this year: if not next year as well, and last year for that matter. It doesn’t flirt with other genres, it’s the sort of record about which people say things like (genuine but misappropriated quotes alert) “This is real country and this is what we’ve been yearning for” or Craig Gerdes has “saved us from Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton and all the other sh*tty pop country garbage” or “At last, this young man is true country” or “why oh why don’t they make country like this anymore”. Or… whatever.
Thing is, in truth, they do make records like this, lots of ‘em, every week it seems. You just need to keep your eyes and ears open, oh and don’t forget to check out AUK on a regular basis! A few of these may be familiar to you – remember the bounce we got hearing Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers, Cody Jinks, Chris Stapelton, John Moreland, Wheeler Walker, Whitey Morgan, Colter Wall….. for the first time? We might have lost the odd one of these to desperately dull fretwinking electronic Southern krautrock pastiche along the way but we can add Craig Gerdes to this list; somewhere near the very top if it’s being graded. This record is as good as anything that anyone on it produced at the start of their careers.
