Eric Church - Desperate Man (2018) [Hi-Res]

"‘Desperate Man’ is the latest / sixth studio album from one of country music’s premier names and biggest, most respected stars; an artist whose ground-breaking 2014 outing, ‘The Outsiders’, a chart-topper in the US and the biggest selling country album of that year, paved the way for the rock / country blend that is such a rich seam today. Eric has long maintained that putting music into specific genres is an outmoded concept, and ‘Desperate Man’ (11 tracks tellingly overseen by regular producer Jay Joyce) is further proof of EC’s broad range of influences – from rock and metal acts through to Hank Williams Jr. and Ray Wylie Hubbard, the latter getting a co-writing credit on the new album’s lead single and title track. Given Eric’s revered status and record-breaking stats, ‘Desperate Man’ (the album) could have been a collection of slickly-crafted stadium anthems, but instead of going down that pyro-laced path, the end result, very much a body of work, spotlights Eric as a thoughtful artist fuelled by emotion, feel and the desire to tell a story; a family man cast in the great American song-writing tradition, bringing to mind names like Springsteen, Seger and Jackson Browne; a musician whose substantial success hasn’t detracted from his ability to both talk from the heart and shoot from the hip. In short, an album for our (desperate) times. "