Keep Exes Beautiful: Country & Adjacent 2025

For ilxor.com's new Rolling Country 2026,  here's a Country & Adjacent list based on (and adding to) my 2025 Folk Alley and No Dep ballots, as posted on the Americana thread, doing the same w my comments on those picks. The ones here are the most RC relevant, I think:

Country & Adjacent
Top albums

Annahstasia: Tether
Ashley Monroe: Tennessee Lightning
Brandi Carlile: Returning to Myself
Cam: All Things Light
Grey Delisle & Friends: It's All Her Fault: A Tribute To Cindy Walker
James McMurtry: The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy
Jason Isbell: Foxes in the Snow
Joe Ely: Love and Freedom
Joshua Ray Walker: Stuff
Kieran Kane & Rayna Gellart: Volume 4
Lukas Nelson: American Romance
Margo Price: Hard Headed Woman
Mavis Staples: Sad and Beautiful World
Michael Hurley: Broken Homes and Gardens
Patty Griffin: Crown of Roses
Tommy Talton: Seven Levels
Tony Joe White: The Real Thang
Tyler Childers: Snipe Hunter
Willie Nelson: Oh What A Beautiful World
Willie Nelson: Workin' Man: Willie Sings Merle

also good: Brennan Leigh: Don't You Ever Give Up On Love, S.G. Goodman: Planting By The Signs Mackenzie Carpenter: Hey Country Queen, Hot Club of Cowtown: Limelight, Rodney Crowell: Airline Highway

About Half Good Sunny Sweeney: Rhinestone Requiem

Ace EP! Summer Dean, Live AF

Singles/Favored Tracks incl. Mackenzie Carpenter: "Don't Mess With Exes," Ella Langley: "Wish I Didn't Know Now," Big Thief: "How Could I Have Known," :Willie Nelson: "What Kind of Love?," Kaitlin Butts: "Red Wine Supernova," "The Middle" (both versions from The Yeehaw Sessions EP)

Comments, maybe more later:

Annahstasia's Tether is sparkly and broody, sometimes crunchy like snow, rec to fans of early Joni Mitchell, Patty Griffin, Brandi Carlilie, current Cam ( necessary details of topography in the atmosphere).

ssshhhh: Ashley Monroe's afternoon views and fly-away plastic castles are wrought with the same cool intensity as several more outright oops upside the head (it's her alright).

It's All Her Fault: A Tribute to Cindy Walker: for one thing, it was a good balance of singers new to me---Summer Dean, Kimmie Bitter, Jolie Holland, Ginny Mac, Mazzy Dee, Gail Davies--and (mostly) my favored knowns: Kelly Willis, Katie Shore, Amythyst Kiah, Brennen Leigh, Rosie Flores, Melissa Carper, Mandy Barnett---did not know, 'til I heard Barnett rocking it, that Walker wrote "Dream Baby." Hats off to Grey Delisle for putting it together (she duets well w Leigh too):
https://greydelisle.bandcamp.com/album/its-all-her-fault-a-tribute-to-cindy-walker?search_item_id%3D288252752%26search_item_type%3Da%26search_match_part%3D%253F%26search_page_id%3D4958483242%26search_page_no%3D0%26search_rank%3D1
Willie Nelson did a good tribute too: You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lLOj5TR_MCMUfxYItqVg98t5s9IsibhmI

Joe Ely, from Ex-Flatlanders thread:
New one, from stash of tracks recorded over quite a few years, is refreshingly sung and played, with Lloyd Maines doing some more polishing, and Ely provides continuity, as writer, interpreter of well-chosen covers, and compiler of well-sequenced tracks. He does a Guy Clark show-stopper that Clark never released, also "Deportee," "Waitin' Around To Die," and "For The Sake of the Song," another TVZ, which goes with several (sometimes Dylan-y) originals re pushing and twisting verbosity into agreeably melodic word-balloons, though as w some previous Joe of recent decades, I had to listen a couple times to get into some of those. Hope there's more.

Joshua Ray Walker: "Yes, I'm still workin' on the cancer, but also I can still do this, heee!" (It's him alright.

Kieran Kane and Rayna Gellart: Volume 4—-their latest has even more low (1975 East Nashville coffee table)-key sound, but I got used to it within first listen: original ballads, with some hooks, even, interspersed w perky trad instrumentals:
https://kanegellert.bandcamp.com/album/volume-4

Mavis Staples: Sad and Beautiful World (eventually just trying to convince herself that it'll be a little better or something, which makes the whole orbit even more poignant and relatable)

McMurtry's set is playful and ugly, esp guitar and words, nostalgic monster aholes on trampolines etc., c'mon along!

Tommy Talton: Seven Levels—-RIP TT was, with Scott Boyer, co-founder of the somewhut misleadingly named Cowboy, whom I've posted about on the Southern Rock thread---here, with early cohorts like Randall Branblett and Chuck Leavell, he delivers a swan song with characteristic discipline x warmth.
https://tommytalton.bandcamp.com/album/seven-levels

Re Tony Joe. from an email response to Chuck E.:
Your "sounds like his understanding of rap music ends around 1980, which I always appreciate,"
goes with Tony Joe's early 80s (maybe 80?)-as-hail "Swamp Rap," which kicks off a sled team of uptempo country hybrids, also "Even Trolls like Rock 'N' Roll," and a version, maybe the hit one, of "Polk Salad Annie." but it seems faster than the hit, mebbe cos of context----all this following a first half of mellow yet candid candle post-Outlaw songs---"Pour me another memory, before this one is gone," also taking women " too lightly...one day you go to the Bank of Texas and you're overdrawn." Until he seems to experience ego-death in an ambient fried-egg sunset(of cumulative memories) ----but then: "Swamp Rap." "I Get Off On It.": and other new adventures. That's The Real Thang, which finally came out this year. PS: Since I brought up this Tony Joe Thang, should add that the post-Outlaw first half usually gratifies the appetite for apt detail as "Swamp Rap" and subsequent tracks.

Willie Nelson: Oh What A Beautiful World---
Exemplary vocal poise clarifies, w/o flattening, the jittery, horny, memory/dream-infested, philosophical (sometimes prolix) chronicles of Rodney Crowell's songs, bringing out their own melodic poise and shrewds (also, Willie picked a lot of the right ones, and it's far too late for early classick "I Ain't Livin' Long Like This."). Strong opener: the disturbed "What Kind of Love?," which is not a rhetorical question: a Crowell-Orbison collab, reminding me that (increasing Crowell influence?)Dylan said in Chronicles that Orbison influenced him by demonstrating a right way to break the rules.

Willie Nelson: Workin' Man: Willie Sings Merle—-singn' & pickin' with Big Sister Bobbie (apparently her last record, but that there pianner's up front on pert near ever track). Good grove w his band, o course, and he's in the pocket, leading the way through the job, after initial vocal frailty (not evident on Oh What a Beautiful World: when were these recorded?)(Merle's writing, incl. Esp. the deepest, "If We Make It Through December," and springing "Ramblin Fever," is so to the point, so razory at times, that I had to get used to the relatively messy, wistful realness and such of Crowell's approach all over again, as covered by Willie and on his own album.)

Brennan Leigh's honky tonk kitchen sink is growing on me:going for a Loretta Lynn Lysol lucidity, she's still got that sometimes whiplash turn of phrase like when moving out of retro on Obsessed With The West, but I'm spoiled by that 'un's faceted flair and fun.

Likewise, S.G. Goodman's latest is not bad but not wild.

Hot Club's set exhibits all the things they're good at, except outstanding, self-defining, or frame-pushing originals: if they wrote any of these (not seeing credits), those blend in a little too well with the vintage gold and semi-precious lights, in and under Western skies (but I'll take it all).

I gotta have at least one big loud pop hat country album every year: women usually do it better, and Mackenzie Carpenter is goin' back in like George Costanza, to the night life whirl and daylight stabs, wailing through her nose and thus shredding bar napkin valentines, also her fairly frequently flimsier material, doing some kinds of justice to it all. Love the dramatic pauses in "Don't Mess With Exes," and it's one of those "why have I never heard a song about this?" songs. More please, for her and me.

 

 PS: here are the FA and ND ballots, with comments on some albums that didn't make Country & Adjacent:

Folk Alley:

1. Brandi Carlile: Returning to Myself

2. Eliza Gilkyson: Dark Ages

3. Jason Isbell: Foxes in the Snow

4. Kieran Kane & Rayna Gellart: Volume 4

5. Margo Price: Hard-Headed Woman

6. Mavis Staples: Sad and Beautiful World

7. Patty Griffin: Crown of Roses

8. Tyler Childers: Snipe Hunter

9. Various Artists: It's All Her Fault: A Tribute To Cindy Walker

10. Willie Nelson: Workin' Man: Willie Sings Merle

No Dep

Folk Bitch Trio: Now Would Be A Good Time
James McMurtry: The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy
Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter: Forever, I’ve Been Being Born
Joe Ely: Love and Freedom
Joshua Ray Walker: Stuff
Los Originarios del Plan: ¡Puritito Michoacán!
Michael Hurley: Broken Homes and Gardens
Peter Stampfel: Song Shards
Tommy Talton: Seven Levels
Tony Joe White: The Real Thang

Some comments, maybe more later:

Folk Bitch Trio's alb def rec to those jonesing for the Roches, esp their debut, with the seemingly sibling harmonies (unrelated, in this case), words also flying in via oblique strokes, sometimes, but clear enough as they land, also spare production, w some variety, always effective.

Jesse's album---from thread Dave Alvin C or D, because she's also in Third Mind w Dave:
O man, this year's Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter album def has Third Mind appeal, w all original songs, sticking to me like birds on a wire, and, within overall stylization, I can tell 'em all apart on first listen---not a usual thing with this kind of cosmic balladeering. Guitar is more accompaniment than Third Mind, though always just the right turn of a note, slightly extended phrase, and can also step right out, like on title track and finale--so rec to those who would lhave liked more guitar activity, however discreet, on Double Infinity--also a bit like VU ballads:
https://jessesykesandthesweethereafter.bandcamp.com/album/forever-ive-been-being-born

Los Originarios del Plan: ¡Puritito Michoacán! The guys are entertainingly bad singers, though eventually some good female voices show up, and the music is always robust, expanding my sonic vocabulary in unexpected ways (I knew I was ignorant of most Mexican music, but didn't really know, of course). Michoácan an association fondly recalled from weed yore.

Peter Stampfel: Song Shards Maybe his voice is starting to go again, but this works: quavering, incisive shards.