Hayes Carll
What It Is
(Dualtone)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Ever since his 2008 breakthrough Trouble In Mind, Texas singer-songwriter Hayes Carll has remained a most reliable country-folk storyteller. With his lazy-drawl delivery and never-flashy, plainspoken lyricism, Carll’s tremendous talent is understated, but from 2002’s “Barroom Lament” to 2008’s “Beaumont” to 2011’s “Chances Are,” the songwriter has amassed an immeasurably sturdy songbook.
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Three years after the self-probing drama of 2016’s Lovers And Leavers, Carll is back with What It Is, his sixth studio album that finds the 43 year old settling into his role as middle-aged master craftsman and truthteller.
Songs like “Times Like These,” “American Dream” and “Fragile Men” form the thematic core of Carll’s latest. The latter song is a barbed commentary on masculinity, and the former a rockabilly reflection on a nation plagued by dismay and oppression. But it’s “American Dream” that shines most brightly, a bittersweet tale of journey-taking that still manages to find a shred of naive hope and beauty in national myth-making.
Elsewhere, Carll finally shared his version of “Jesus and Elvis,” the instant-classic barroom tribute co-written with his partner Allison Moorer and recorded by Kenny Chesney in 2016. The vast majority of What It Is is well-worn sonic territory for Carll, ranging between roadhouse country, sensitive folk and roots-rock. Between the humorous relationship love-hate strife of “None’ya” and the devoted plea of “I Will Stay,” Carll bookends his otherwise character-based latest offerings with personal offerings that stand among some of the more emotionally affective originals he’s written.
For anyone expecting a stark left-turn from the songwriter, What It Is will be a let-down. But the record’s greatest strength is also what makes it predictable: as Carll settles into the warm consistency and careful craft of middle-career, he’s less interested in proving who he is than in refining what he does best.