Review Summary: Professional Americana
Is Chris Stapleton an outlaw, or the only adult (contemporary) in the mainstream country room? He's definitely a cut above in the singing department when compared to most of his contemporaries; able to shift between Texan ballads, blue-eyed soul and almost 70's rock with ease. He also doesn't seem to resort to the clunky, convoluted "wit" of his peers - Chris keeps the songwriting and themes simple and tasteful. There's lots to like about the humble presentation, but ultimately, levitating over a buried bar does not automatically make an album worth multiple listens.
These songs are, for the most part, built around really basic mid-to-slow verses, with Chris singing very singular melodic lines until the chorus. I've never felt Stapleton has developed a 'sound' the way someone like say, Ryan Bingham, did - there's an air of competence in the musical setting, nothing more. And the distinguishing jewel must be that voice - but Stapleton's delivery is too mirror-practised to really find the heart of a song trapped in the words and strings. He rarely sounds hurried or pushed - every big moment is telegraphed and comfortable. It's very professional and Stapleton understands what
should be where - but it's not moving, just profoundly accurate. Stapleton spent some time in more genre-specific acts (the Steeldrivers, the Jompson Brothers), and while not considerably more impressive than his solo career, I think the narrower parameters gave his performances personality. Here, surface genre hopping feels like a box ticking exercise. We move from the polite sex jam of 'Loving you on my mind' to the overblown fidelity country ballad of 'The day I die', and on the edge of the highway line we spot the boring bar burner 'Crosswind'.
There's a brief moment of electricity on 'White Horse', one of the more dramatic tracks which veers closer to rock country cheese than the rest of the album. Stapleton almost sounds a little overwhelmed for the first time, and I like that despite the cornfire burning behind him. This even carries into the title track, with Stapleton flitting through his register to emphasize the word 'Higher' - on the nose, but also with a welcome almost-raggedness. The other highlight is the closer 'Mountains of my mind' which makes good on the hype of Stapleton's simple honesty.
I'm certainly not against an artist consciously making a solid record - not reaching for the stars, no huge trauma or big point to make. It's not really Stapleton's fault that he's sometimes touted as a prominent beacon for authenticity in a genre that has, in its most commercial form, sacrificed much of that feeling. But the polish and clichéd prose of Stapleton's work doesn't live up to that promise, and I'm not sure the storytelling or songwriting is there to compensate for it. Different corner of adult contemporary, but when Marc Cohn tells me about his father's silver Thunderbird, I'm perfectly fine not knowing whether it's true or not - I can laugh at his father figure saying a foreign car is absurd - and I can hear Marc understands loving your dad. Listening to
Higher I'm not sure how Stapleton really feels or what he understands - I just know the shape of the placeholder, the appropriate tone of the colours, and the expectation of a gold star.
