Parker Millsap w/Katie Pruitt

Writing for National Public Radio in 2014, rock critic Ann Powers said she first heard Oklahoma-born Americana singer Parker Millsap’s tune “Truck Stop Gospel” as “just making fun of its subject,” but eventually decided it was a mixture of “satire and compassionate portrayal.” Like the rest of his 2014 self-titled full-length, “Truck Stop Gospel” is a weird narrative, and unlike Powers, I don’t hear it as satire: If Millsap believes that he can vex the devil by writing a song about a truck-driving Christian missionary who paints a large cross on his rig and hangs a crown of thorns from his rear-view mirror, I assume he’s sincere. Millsap sings in an overripe tenor that breaks into growls and moments of falsetto ecstasy, and he’s an Americana-ized version of such religion-minded forebears as Judee Sill and Norman Greenbaum. His 2016 album The Very Last Day is as earnestly demented as his previous work, but even slicker. That’s Americana. EDD HURT