Way Out Here

On the heels of 2023’s *Ain’t My Last Rodeo*, Riley Green offers up a sampler platter of straight-down-the-middle country with this seven-song collection. *Way Out Here* opens with “Jesus Saves,” a Green solo write about getting to know a man who fell on hard times. It’s a welcome bit of both narrative songwriting and vividly rendered compassion, as Green favors nuanced humanity over dismissive moralizing; “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” this is not. The title track, which is the only outside cut on the EP, treads more familiar genre territory, celebrating a “backwoods way of living” and invoking, as country songs are wont to do, a trio of Johns: Cash, Wayne, and Deere. “Good Morning From Mexico” brings Kenny Chesney vibes to the proceedings, as Green celebrates the salt life with laidback, contented grit. Green also nods to country’s growing love affair with Bruce Springsteen—popularized, of course, by Eric Church—with a spirited cover of the Boss’ 1982 classic “Atlantic City.”