#247 — Tyler Childers — Purgatory (2017)
Yee-haw (complimentary)
Now this is something I didn’t know I needed. A straight-up country album. Guitar, slide, fiddle, banjo, drums and a young man singing his heart out about his love of his life, the place he’s from and his substance addiction problem.
Except nah, there’s a lot more to this album than that. It’s a clippy 37 minutes for 10 tracks, meaning we’re dealing with someone who can tell a damn story in under 4 minutes for the most part.
And it’s a hard life in Kentucky, full of jars of shine, trudging through snow, murdering someone for an arrow head they dug up and doing cocaine with your buddies by the creek. But then there’s love and local girls and trying to do better. And also peeking through the cracks of life, the divine — be it being Born Again, or the Universal Sound. When he sings “Catholic girl pray for me, you’re my only hope for heaven” on the title track, you know it’s wry but he’s not lying to you.
Country music got fucking weird after 9/11 and for a while there it seemed it’d never get untangled from the flag or the traumatised nationalism that’s bent that country even further out of shape. Purgatory is as American as country gets, but you won’t find America, USA or even the stars and stripes mentioned in a single track.
This isn’t about America, it’s smaller than that. This is a country boy singing about his country life. And because of that, this isn’t about America, it’s bigger than that. It’s about heartbreak and unclean living and rattling through life knowing you’ve got to clean up before you meet God.
Tyler Childers — Purgatory — 2017
Best Track: Purgatory. There’s better country tracks on this album, but this one’s pure bluegrass about a trying to avoid hell and taking purgatory, because you sure as shit ain’t going to heaven.
Underrated Banger: Honky Tonk Flame. A slow wind through a boy’s return to Kentucky, chasing girls before falling in love and learning to live right.
You can find some of the tracks off this album here on his YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tylerchilders/videos
