American Love Song

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It's hard to imagine a comeback as rowdy and realized as American Love Song. The double album isn't merely Ryan Bingham's first in four years, it's his most confident since his brief flirtation with the mainstream at the dawn of the 2010s. Bingham's retreat from the spotlight was fueled in part by personal issues -- both of his parents died in the early 2010s, a loss chronicled on 2012's Tomorrowland -- but he also seemed at ease releasing modest albums on his own Axster Records imprint. American Love Song also appears on Axster, but it's the furthest thing from modest. Chalk some of this up to co-producer Charlie Sexton, who gives the album's 15 songs a rough-and-tumble feel suited for backwoods Texas juke joints. Sexton, who plays plenty of greasy guitar on the album as well, pushes Bingham to play with grit and heart, a move that makes the record a pleasure on a pure musical level; it's the sound of a great group of players laying into earthy grooves, no matter if they're rave-ups or sunset strums. The music suits the songs, which are the sharpest set of tunes Bingham has ever written. Most of American Love Song thrives on Bingham's modest yet fully realized intentions: he opens the record with the raucous "Jingle and Go," a salute to the joys of playing music, which finds a counterpart in the dirty boogie "Got Damn Blues." Bingham surrounds these lighter moments with introspection that avoids becoming overwrought, punctuating the proceedings with social commentary that's perhaps a little bit too on the nose. The casual, lived-in feel of American Love Song makes such political protests as "America" feel a little too blunt, but instead of being a flaw, its directness is a benefit, since it shines a light on how subtle and nimble the rest of this terrific record is. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine