Damn Love

While country artists increasingly turn toward making lengthy, often double albums, Kip Moore prefers quality over quantity. The “Somethin’ ’Bout a Truck” hitmaker follows the three-year absence since 2020’s acclaimed *Wild World* with a tight, focused collection that showcases his greatest strength: his gritty, emotive voice. *Damn Love* opens with its title track, a heartland rocker with country flourishes that considers romantic love as a double-edged sword, a theme that recurs across the rest of the record. “The Guitar Slinger” is something of a centerpiece for *Damn Love*, as the six-minute opus chronicles the “highs and lows of a sad song singer,” offering a glimpse into the less glamorous side of Moore’s life as a touring musician. Sonically, the track is especially spare, eventually building to one of Moore’s most powerful vocal performances to date. The production on *Damn Love* is noteworthy, too, as Moore co-produced the LP with The Cadillac Three’s Jaren Johnston, the latter having a penchant for crunchy, often funk-influenced arrangements. That fusion is especially evident on tracks like the Springsteen-esque “Heart on Fire,” with its funky, staccato guitar, and the twangy groove of “Kinda Bar.”

The pastel pink on the album cover of Damn Love and the echoing Edge-y guitar of the title track deliberately evoke memories of Wild Ones, the 2015 album where Kip Moore emphasized his debt to 1980s heartland rock.