Long Violent History

Released without prior fanfare during the waning days of a long, violent summer, Long Violent History is an understated protest album from Tyler Childers, one that attempts to place the political protests of 2020 within a broader context. Childers makes his intentions plain only at the end of the record, when its title track -- the only original song here and the only one with vocals, too -- asks his fellow white Kentuckians that if they lived through the same experiences as their black neighbors do, would they then acknowledge that institutional racism exists? When Long Violent History was released as a single, Childers accompanied it with a six-minute video explaining his goals and why hes a supporter of Black Lives Matter, and while those interviews do provide context for Long Violent History, the album itself is powerful enough to stand on its own. For the first eight songs, Childers and his band run through eight instrumental -- almost all bluegrass -- standards (the opening Send in the Clowns is a bit of a ringer), giving them such a high lonesome reading, theyre nearly mournful. All of this sets up the gut punch of the closer, a song that pulls this mountain music into focus, helping to suggest that Kentuckians are bonded by a culture that stands above racism. Its the rare protest album that doesnt need words to shout, and its all the more powerful because of it. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine