Country Things

Granger Smith doled out Country Things over the course of two EPs during 2020, combining them both as a single LP at the end of the year, adding a couple of new tracks for good measure. The title gives away Smiths game a bit. Country Things is indeed about, well, a bunch of country things: love, family, dirt roads, and cornpone humor, the latter sometimes delivered through his alter ego Earl Dibbles Jr. Amiable guy that he is, Smith delivers this all with an audible grin, his sunny vibe sometimes veering straight into cornball territory. Usually, he loses the plot when he decided to give some space to Earl Dibbles Jr. -- Country & Ya Know It interpolates the childhood singalong If Youre Happy and You Know It to a maddening end -- but if he sticks to familiar territory and doesnt get too silly, too sappy, too loud, or too twangy, this is ingratiating country that sounds like how they made em back in the 1990s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine