David Robert Pollock - Under The Stone (2025) Hi-Res

Under The Stone is an album filled with buoyant country adjacent folk songs, focused on Pollock's ability to write compellingly three-dimensional characters, while understanding the importance of an effervescent rhythm and an earworm melody. From Tom Waits to Tom T. Hall there's a long lineage of artists who share this special ability and Pollock uncannily taps into that same well.

The record's title is uttered towards the end of the song First String. In which our protagonist, seemingly at their lowest, is forced to deal with the complete and utter indifference the universe has for them. Reflecting back on his unfulfilled dreams of football glory, and his long gone high school sweetheart, he's left with no friends and a broken down car hitchhiking to his next destination. Even aliens looking to abduct someone, in the classic 50s sci-fi flying saucer sense, pass by our guy with what amounts to a shrug.