On any other night, it would have been the biggest story in Nashville. Country superstar Eric Church had pulled a Beyoncé, releasing a surprise full-length album and debuting a new single at the CMA awards. But on that particular night, last Wednesday, the relatively unknown songwriter Chris Stapleton, a hirsute country-soul crooner with a bellowing voice and a fantastic debut album, sucked all the air out of the CMA awards zeitgeist by taking home three major awards and delivering a show-stopping eight-minute performance alongside friend and fan Justin Timberlake.
Stapleton dominated the news cycle for the next week, and for good reason – his album quickly shot to the top spot of the Billboard 200, selling more copies in the 24 hours after the CMA awards than it had the entire six months preceding it. It’s now projected to spend yet another week in first place.
But while all the Stapleton gushing has made for an exciting and joyous week of country music thinkpieces, it has also occasionally overshadowed Church’s new album, Mr Misunderstood, which is worthy of gushing as well. The 10-track collection is a gem and the best album of his career. Granted, it’s hardly been ignored – it debuted at No 3 on the Billboard 200 last week – but its unconventional rollout left a gap in the buzz cycle. On some level, that seems to have been intentional.
“We just wanted to find a way to lead with the music,” Church’s manager, John Peets, recently said of their strategy. That suggested a desire to avoid the long (and expensive) rollout that surrounded Church’s last album, The Outsiders, which employed cinematic teases and multiple single releases before becoming a blockbuster seller. Mr Misunderstood will need to rely more upon word-of-mouth over the next few months to find a similarly sized audience.
Mr Misunderstood marks a return to form for Church, who flirted with hard rock and even shades of heavy metal on The Outsiders, a solid album that occasionally felt too determined to frame Church as a boot-stomping badass that wasn’t squarely part of the Nashville establishment. He’s more convincing when he lets his music do the talking, for his sound – an appealing brand of heartland rock with shades of southern gospel and blues that occasionally evokes John Mellencamp – truly is unlike any other major star’s in country music.
Mr Misunderstood has more in common sonically with Church’s breakout album Chief, which won album of the year at the 2012 CMA awards, than it does The Outsiders. That said, it’s a more mature and less party-driven album than Chief, which scored hits with songs like Drink In My Hand and Creepin. Church became a father in 2011 (and his sons, Boone McCoy and Tennessee Hawkins, already have the coolest names in Nashville should they one day decide to go into country music), and Mr Misunderstood ruminates on themes of family and childhood with moving sweetness, an emotion that suits Church’s gruff vocals better than you might expect. He’s convincing as a caring father and husband on both Holdin’ My Own and Three Year Old, a song that finds him singing, “Nothing turns a day around like licking a mixing bowl.”
The title track, the album’s lead single, also reflects upon growing up, this time as an adolescent. In the song Church name-drops Elvis Costello, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Jeff Tweedy – a group of singers he admires that reflect his own straddling of the country and rock genres. On Record Year, the most obviously radio-ready single of the whole bunch, Church sings about continually flipping over vinyls to get through a breakup. On the track A Mistress Named Music, Church again comments on the power of music he felt as a youngster in church. The song begins with this couplet: “I still remember miss Bessie singing/ Black, wrinkled fingers on ivory keys.” It’s a testament to the writing here that such vivid couplets aren’t uncommon on the album.
Knives of New Orleans, the finest track on the album, is a genuinely thrilling story song about a man who’s on the run after leaving a woman for dead in Lake Ponchartrain. “I did what I did!” Church wails repeatedly over guitar riffs in the song’s conclusion, leaving you to decide whether he’s playing a brazen killer or a man consumed with regret. Perhaps he’s both. With a tense, thrumming bass line and a wall of guitars that kicks in after the chorus, Knives is just a thoroughly excellent composition written by Church, Jeremy Spillman and Travis Meadows, a songwriter to watch that I’ve covered in this column before.
Really, there’s no filler here. Even the two duets, Mixed Drinks About Feelings, which features Susan Tedeschi, and Kill A Word, featuring Rhiannon Giddens’s ever-distinct belting, are so much more than throwaway novelties, as they too often are on mainstream country albums.
If it seems like I’m raving, well, I am. With Mr Misunderstood, Church has made it clear yet again that he is one of the few true album artists signed to a major label that resonates with the public. He’s right up there with Miranda Lambert, who has remained similarly compelling and recognizable since her arrival on the scene. Church has a distinct sound that doesn’t morph along with the trends of radio, and though some of the genre’s men may be better at garnering media attention or flashing toothy smiles for cameras, Church demonstrates a commitment to quality above notoriety. That’s what makes him a real outsider.
