Luke Bryan released his fifth studio album this Friday, a sonic effort that sees Bryan return to his Muckalee roots while expanding to include his most diverse and non-genre-stringent work yet.
The thirteen-track release leads with “Kick The Dust Up,” Bryan’s 17th single and 13th to hit #1 at country radio (this week.) It’s one of the Georgia native’s most out-of-the-box singles to date, heavy on tracked percussion and building to a spoken post-chorus over a Middle-Eastern-influenced scale that feels a far instrumental cry from equally jaunty early releases like “Country Man.” Unsurprisingly, synthetic percussives play a more prominent role on Kill The Lights than any release prior; second single, the sensual “Strip It Down,” references a return to “an old back road with an old school beat” over a bare but certainly not old school instrumental. The single bears more in common with Jason Aldean’s recent single “Burnin’ It Down,” though “Strip” flows a little more smoothly, with more R&B-like crooning and less overtly sexual content.
If there is a return to the old school beat Bryan professes to miss, it’s with the second track, “Kill The Lights,” (Bryan / Jody Stevens / Jeff Stevens) which professes an instrumental that most closely resembles Talking Heads songs of the late 70’s and early 80’s. It’s a bizarre but not totally ungracious coupling, and succeeds in setting a bold tone for the artist.
It’s not the only new style that Bryan embodies on Kill The Lights, produced by Jeff Stevens and Jody Stevens. “To the Moon and Back,” a slow burning ballad that Bryan describes as a future wedding song, is perhaps the most unexpected choice the singer makes on the release. If pop music is a series of choruses serving as verse and chorus, “To the Moon and Back,” written by Tom Douglas, Hillary Lindsey, and Tony Lane, is the opposite, with no distinct build to a hook.
“I think when you hear ‘Kick the Dust Up’ right off the bat, it sets a tone,” Bryan says in a release. “Then even with some of the other tracks like ‘Fast’ and then even ‘To the Moon and Back,’ those go down that ‘Drink a Beer’ seriousness that I was able to do a little bit on Crash My Party. And now it worked on Crash My Party, and now I’m confident to do it certainly on this album and more albums to come.”
It works and it doesn’t. “To the Moon and Back” is a gorgeous song, delicately diamond-studded like a spider’s web met with morning dew. It’s a love poem set to the plucking of heartstrings, and Hillary Lindsey’s backing vocal adds breadth to the body. But for Bryan, it feels like a bit of a mismatch; it’s a McGraw moment of honesty from an artist who marketed his latest lyric video through an app that facilitates booty calls. While it seeks to be Kill The Lights’ “Drink A Beer” moment, it’s just not quite the right moment for this point in Bryan’s career, much the same way that Jake Owen failed to fully captivate with “What We Ain’t Got.”
When it comes to “Fast,” however, Bryan hits the sweet spot, for what is easily the most captivating track on the album. “Fast, that’s the kind of car you want to drive when you’re 16 / fast, that’s the kind of boys that you want on your home team, fast / yeah you think you’re gonna catch your big dreams, just like that, fast,” Bryan sings to start the song. The production is complementary without being gluttonous or bombastic, letting the lyric and vocal lead without losing the listener. If Bryan’s announcement that this year marks his last Spring Break album signals a graduation from college, “Fast” is the transition to adulthood, a perfect balance between home grown hope and realized retrospection.
For those that crave classic Bryan, however, the singer provides. At times it’s rather bland, as with “Huntin’, Fishin’, and Lovin’ Every Day,” which harkens strongly to Georgia roots as thick as the Muckalee mud but without the hook that solidly plants you there. “Scarecrows” (Ashley Gorley / Trevor Rosen / Shane McAnally) is a more solidly Bryan classic, with a riff similar to Bryan’s “Drunk On You” and a lyric that touches his farm boy roots. “Just like the scarecrows, even when the wind blows / we keep our boots and our roots in these cornrows / where we threw down and we passed it around every Friday night / just some old plow boys pretending we’re cowboys / we came from nothing, oh but look at us now boys / even when we leave here, we’ll always be here wherever we go / just like the scarecrows,” Bryan sings in the hook. Like “Fast,” the mid-tempo “Scarecrows” is Bryan’s knack for plaintive nostalgia at its strongest, and will hit home even with those that don’t self-ascribe as fans of the singer.
Bryan also comes in strong with “Love It Gone,” a catchy and classic sound built around a cool melodic line in the verses. “Over” employs clever wordplay in the hook, as does the fast-paced and aggressively rock “Move.” The duet with Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild, though potentially exciting, ends up being one of the weakest moments on the record, with lyrics like “put your drink down, throw your camera up / flip it around, and snap a payback picture” followed by the echoed “I’ll send it to my ex” feeling awkwardly juvenile. Though Fairchild sounds good on the song, it’s a strange duet pairing, and would’ve felt more natural with a less maturely branded singer such as Kelsea Ballerini.
Kill The Lights will do well with fans. While it feels a bit long, it features a diverse offering that, while not necessarily transcendental, at times hits a groove that’s impressive and engaging.
Top Tracks: “Fast,” “Scarecrows,” “Kill The Lights”
Rating: 3.5/5
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