As we roll into the final weeks of this unusual year, the array of outstanding releases from Nashville musicians continues. The holiday season is a great time to support your favorite musicians by buying merch or records. Our writers have nine new releases to recommend, so add ’em to your streaming queue or get a physical copy from your favorite record store. Or put them on your wish list for #BandcampFriday, the promotion in which the platform waives its cut of artist fees on the first Friday of the month — the next installment of which is Dec. 3.
Daisha McBride, Let Me Get This Off My Chest (The Rap Girl)
Daisha McBride has consistently written from the heart, but the MC’s second full-length, Let Me Get This Off My Chest, reaches a new level of personal vulnerability. This record features her rhymes only — no guest appearances — and she swears for the first time on tape as she examines the hard-won lessons that come from romantic relationships that don’t work out. She looks at how difficult it can be to let someone go when it’s over (“Ur Free”), how important it is to feel like you can trust your partner (“Loyal”) and how gratifying it is to look inside yourself and see things you can feel good about once you’re on the other side of heartbreak (“Bounce Back”). STEPHEN TRAGESER
Find Let Me Get This Off My Chest on your favorite streaming service via McBride's Linktree.
Emily Scott Robinson, American Siren (Oh Boy)
With two stellar full-length records already behind her, Emily Scott Robinson signed with John Prine’s Oh Boy Records to release her stunning, multifaceted American Siren. Robinson explores the human complexities that are often hidden behind closed doors or forced smiles, from secret affairs born out of a discontented marriage (“If Trouble Comes a Lookin’ ”), the itch to attain supersized dreams (“Cheap Seats”) or the staggering loss of a loved one to suicide (“Hometown Hero”). American Siren elevates Robinson as one of Americana’s best storytellers, earning acclaim that is both well-deserved and long overdue. LORIE LIEBIG
Trevor Nikrant, Tall Ladders (Dear Life)
Styrofoam Winos songsmith Trevor Nikrant’s solo outing Tall Ladders is an eminently likable, sitting-on-the-stoop, watching-the-passing-scene affair. “Slow Notion,” a highlight of the nine-song set, is practically onomatopoeic, thanks to how perfectly its title matches its sound and feel. Even as Nikrant’s low, Lou Reed-meets-Calvin Johnson lilt invites the listener to meander into sonic wilderness, the music stays loosely organized in a quietly psychedelic fashion. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
Kristen Ford, War in the Living Room (Waxsimile Productions)
On the Bandcamp page for her fifth studio album War in the Living Room, Kristen Ford describes the record as simply “indie rock.” But the 10-track album is so much more than that. It’s a journey through a whole heap of rock-adjacent genres and building blocks of rock, like R&B (“Lock Up My Heart”), contemporary alt-rock (“Grey Sky Blue”), folk (“Best Friends”), power pop (“Eastside”) and, yes, upbeat indie rock (“Condo,” made all the more interesting with distorted, textural swagger). Ford’s latest is even more notable for being co-produced by Brett Bullion and the one and only June Millington. Millington is a co-founder of the legendary ’70s rock band Fanny, which inspired The Go-Go’s and The Runaways and is also the namesake of East Nashville’s beloved music store Fanny’s House of Music. MEGAN SELING
Hayes Carll, You Get It All (Dualtone)
The quality of the readymade melodies that Hayes Carll favors on You Get It All suggests that Texas-to-Tennessee singer-songwriterdom has always been about living large in a familiar space. Carll writes about moral relativism in “Any Other Way,” but you know he isn’t going to cross the line into true immorality or forget where he came from. Similarly, “To Keep From Being Found” finds him on the run in a universe where his transgressions are comic, not tragic. “To Keep” features my favorite bit of song poetry on You Get It All: Carll describes his motel telephone as “the one on which I’m not expecting any calls from home.” You Get It All also sports two beautiful pieces of music, “Help Me Remember” and “Leave It All Behind,” both of which get sentimental in ways that any good cowboy could endorse. EDD HURT
Primeval Well, Talkin’ in Tongues With Mountain Spirits (Moonlight Cypress Archetypes)
Dubbing Primeval Well a black metal band is too reductive — there’s a lot going on here. The band’s second offering, a follow-up to their self-titled 2019 cassette, opens with a hypnotic collage of chants and sounds that form a loose raga to guide sonic wanderers into the bleak Appalachian atmosphere. You descend into the record for several minutes before the first hint of screaming or blast beats. Primeval Well takes massive creative risks, entwining their black metal with melodies drawn from mountain music and blues to create a mystical Southern Gothic sound — a unique sound that’s as intriguing as it is ferocious. P.J. KINZER
Hammock, Elsewhere (Hammock Music)
For the past 15 years or so, the duo of Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson, aka Hammock, has been well-loved around the world for its inventive and atmospheric compositions, some of which you heard in Nashville director Kogonada’s well-received 2017 film Columbus. The group’s latest, Elsewhere, like many COVID-era projects, was a remote collaboration using minimal equipment at each member’s home studio. Its soundscapes shimmer with throbbing swells of nebulous synth and sparse guitar drones, simultaneously sounding expansive while taking up as little space as possible. These beat-bereft, lyric-less tracks wash over you with themes of isolation, escapism and solidarity. SETH GRAVES
Pat Coil Trio, How Deep Is the Ocean (Burton Avenue)
Longtime studio pianist Pat Coil brings flair and elegance to his performances on his latest album, backed by bassist Jacob Jezioro and drummer Danny Gottlieb (who happens to be a founding member of Pat Metheny Group). The trio executes these renditions of jazz standards and show tunes nicely, with Coil’s crisp melodic statements and engaging solos particularly noteworthy on the longer selections like “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” the intense “Prelude in E Minor,” and the delightful “Chelsea’s Dream.” The smoothness of the performance doesn’t take away from the technical acumen. The trio is a highly capable unit, and both Jezioro and Gottlieb prove nuanced soloists when given the spotlight. RON WYNN
Find How Deep Is the Ocean on your favorite streaming service and visit Coil's website for updates.
HalfNoise, Motif (Congrats)
Zac Farro’s work for and with others has garnered a lot of attention: He’s a co-founder of Paramore, and in his role as a producer he helped Becca Mancari make her excellent 2020 album The Greatest Part. But his solo work, under the name HalfNoise, also stands out. The band’s new album Motif is steeped in lush ’70s post-Beatles pop. While it’s not breaking new ground, it’s executed beautifully and in service of heartfelt songs about being in love and how you have to learn how that works by doing it — hear the closing number “Last Day on Earth,” which includes the refrain: “The young disbelievers / They’re young in love and everything else / They didn’t believe us / But then again I wouldn’t.” STEPHEN TRAGESER
Find Motif on your favorite streaming service and buy the record from your favorite store or via HalfNoise's website.
