Never Enough

Parker McCollum leans hard into his rock roots on Never Enough, the second album hes delivered to a major label. A native of Texas who adopted Austin as his home after high school graduation, McCollum may have traces of George Strait in his Red Dirt blood but theyre hard to hear on Never Enough, not when he spends the record playing directly to the rafters. This oversized sense of scale is as apparent on the ballads as it is on the highway anthems; every note, every line is designed to occupy as much space on a wide-open vista as possible. Despite these big gestures, McCollum keeps Never Enough grounded: its a record filled with booming drums and chiming guitars, a sound given suitable brawn by Jon Randall, a producer best known for his collaborations with Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley. Randall gives the album a lean, sinewy style that could be seen as quintessentially Texan if it werent for the insistent rhythms and McCollums finely sanded vocal rasp pulling it ever closer to heartland rock. The sturdy hooks and plain-spoken narratives on Never Enough often make it seem like a lost Wallflowers record, a spell somewhat undone by how McCollum cant resist indulging sentimental tales about old men and mothers. Those ballads help keep the singer/songwriter planted in country music, but this record shows that the Texan cant resist the siren call of the wide-open roads of middle America. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine