On the one hand, maybe there’s such a thing as too many Neil Young archival releases; on the other…is there? More so than *Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere*, the recordings here capture the extremes of folk prettiness and rock ’n’ roll ugliness that made Young’s music with Crazy Horse so gnarly and ultimately influential. A “Winterlong” weak with heartache and a “Helpless” that trudges forward like a beggar at death’s door. A wild first take of “Down by the River” and an equally wild 14th of “Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown” on which the band crosses from good and loose into bloodshot and a little unhinged. You can hear why he was considered both forbidding in his rawness and so eminently breakable in his vulnerability, and why he went back to this band over and over and over again: Who else could play with so little grace and make it sound so beautiful?
It’s a golden age for troubadours. Following the end of the bro-country era, a new generation of story-driven, acoustic-guitar-slinging singer-songwriters wearing their hearts on their sleeves took firm hold of the genre, birthing stars like Zach Bryan and Charles Wesley Godwin. Sam Barber is another formidable voice in this still-emerging canon, as he shows on this sprawling collection of songs written over the course of the 21-year-old’s five-year foray into music. Like Bryan, Barber worked with producer Eddie Spear, whose light but thoughtful touch keeps the ambitious, 28-song project from sounding repetitive. Anchored by Barber’s viral song “Straight and Narrow,” *Restless Mind* is a winding, sometimes surprising journey through dying relationships and dead-end towns, with appropriately spare, rough-hewn production. The record opens with “Man You Raised,” itself beginning with a voicemail from Barber’s mother that sets a homespun tone for the songs that follow. With its aggressively strummed guitar and folksy melody, it’s easy to hear Bryan’s influence on this one, though Barber’s story is all his own as he assures his mother “the moon will never steal your son away.” Other highlights include the title track, one of two collaborations with Avery Anna that cranks up the moodiness, and “Streetlight,” a Lumineers-reminiscent track that ups the record’s tempo.
