“Country’s Cool Again” is one of the song titles here – and Lainey Wilson kind of has a point. It never used to be. Now, every U.S. star touring from Cadillac Three to Brothers Osborne and beyond sells out their tour in the U.K.
But then, as former MTV man Riki Ratchman pointed out in a documentary about 80s metal when grunge happened, it was where the arena rockers kind of had to go for kicks.
And if now we’re at the point where half of what’s called country is nothing of the sort – to borrow a line from Shooter Jennings, it couldn’t hit country with a baseball bat – that’s not the case with Lainey Wilson.
It takes Wilson less than 20 seconds to get us into the honky-tonk, and “Keep Up With Jones” is wonderful.
Boozy, fun, and as classic-sounding as you like, it makes for a superb opening.
It also rather sums up the aforementioned “… Again.” The track is an absolute beauty, slide guitar, and sass in equal measure, and if you can’t sing its chorus after the third go-round, then you’re not listening.
There is a pull to this music. Once it gets under your skin, and she makes it so clear on “Good Horses” (which features Miranda Lambert) or the timeless “Broken Hearts Still Beat.”
And timeless is the word. You can’t emphasise too much how this taps into the lineage. This is why the title track works so well as it moves things into the modern era.
An era that “Call A Cowboy” proudly doesn’t belong in, “Hang Tight Honey,” on the other hand, is just a sensational good-time rocker.
A couple of other things need to be said at this point. First, Wilson has a sensational voice, and also, she’s a fantastic songwriter. A co-writer on all of these, and the variety is astonishing. From the slow-building “Bar In Baton Rouge” to the down-home “Counting Chickens” in four minutes is quite something.
And as ever, no one knows what these albums would do if the protagonists had failed their driving test. “4x4xU” underlines that.
Things get proper funky on “Ring Finger” and they get fragile on “Middle Of It”, and the skill of this is right here. And the acoustics are back out for the haunting “Devil Don’t Go There”, perhaps the most cathartic one here. It’s as powerful as it is raw.
The more you listen to “Whirlwind” the better it gets, “Whiskey Colored Crayon” ends it on anything but a happy note, and the pain really comes through.
That’s country. Right there. Every emotion you can think of. Lainey Wilson is brilliant at it too. That’s why she’s been asked to sing with artists as diverse as Hardy and The Black Crowes.
Since she left her country community in the camper she called home a decade ago, it must have been a “Whirlwind” and it’s all in these 14 brilliant songs.
Rating: 9/10
REVIEW: LAINEY WILSON – WHIRLWIND (2024)
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