A Sailor's Guide to Earth
Progressive country's lead tastemaker changes his path again. A Sailor's Guide to Earth finds Sturgill Simpson weirder and more adventurous than ever, forging a bold new way forward.
Johnny Cash once made a list of essential country songs for his daughter Rosanne to explore, which decades later became the…
Check out our album review of Artist's A Sailor's Guide to Earth on Rolling Stone.com.
Back in the Eighties, when Lush’s first recordings appeared, it was still unusual for a band to feature more than a lone female presence, so they were trailblazers of a sort - if “trailblazing” is an apt term to apply to their shoegazing style. Oddly, their ingenue charm works more effectively in this mature reunion mode than in the gamine original: “Out Of Control” is a natural extension of that style, with Miki Berenyi’s murmurous vocals and Emma Anderson’s droning guitars creating rolling dream-pop waves, and “Lost Boy” showcasing their trademark chorus-effect guitar jangle. Romance remains their core theme, although “Rosebud” strikes out for the harsher terrain of thoughtless cruelty: “They’re just having some fun/How is it wrong, if you’re wearing a smile?”. A welcome return.
Back when he released High Top Mountain in 2013, the retro sensibilities of Sturgill Simpson seemed to be rooted solely in outlaw country: he swaggered like the second coming of Waylon Jennings, a man on a mission to restore muscle and drama to country music.
With the recent surge in popularity for "real" or "outlaw" country music, many have turned the focal point of discussion about the genre to...
The album is an astoundingly well-realized, consistently surprising, and mostly brilliant genre-bending experiment.
Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide To Earth review: Hello, my son: welcome to earth
The best country music and Americana albums of 2016, chosen by Culture Editor Martin Chilton, unless stated.