Terms of Surrender is the 11th studio album from Hiss Golden Messenger in as many years. That’s not including a handful of EPs and live albums. The Durham, North Carolina band’s latest was heavily inspired, and dedicated to, lead singer MC Taylor’s wife and children, and perhaps more than any of Taylor’s previous work, it begins to search for meaning and hope in a world that Taylor says he felt disconnected from, lonely and lost to himself within. Continue reading
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Seratones have a long relationship with Birmingham, as one of their first ventures out of Louisiana was as an opener for Birmingham’s own St. Paul & the Broken Bones. The relationship that lead singer AJ Haynes has maintained with the band has been an important one to her as she has navigated the past three years between albums. During that time, she spent a lot of time working on the craft of songwriting and on ensuring that she had surrounded herself with the musicians that she needed for the sophomore record. Continue reading
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A Texas band can be a Texas band for an entire career and make a pretty good living. That was especially true throughout the 90s and 00s. They came in varying measures of success and varying types of swing, but the list has been expansive: from Jack Ingram and Aaron Watson to Randy Rogers and Stoney LaRue. For years, few crossed over the barrier–be it imagined or be it the actual Mississippi River. There were obvious exceptions like Willie Nelson and George Strait, and later troubadours like Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen. Continue reading
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Baroness has, somehow, never been to Birmingham. Well, they were once. Their bus stopped here as it was passing through to head to Atlanta. Lead singer John Baizley remembers that. The band is still from Savannah, Georgia by default, and Baizley is the only remaining original member. He spent much of his youth in the Appalachians of Virginia and in Savannah, and that somehow managed to influence his brand of metal.
Gold & Grey is the band’s fifth album, each named for colors. It’s the first to feature Gina Gleason on guitar. Continue reading
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Mike Krol released his fourth album in January, Power Chords. He also got engaged over the past year, to Birmingham’s own Allison Crutchfield, who has spent a lot of time as his labelmate at Merge Records. Continue reading
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The Get Up Kids returned in 2019 with their sixth studio album, Problems. It’s their first album since 2011’s There Are Rules, but this time, the band never really broke up as they did in 2004. While they each pursued some other projects, they never went far from one another, staying on the festival circuit when called. Continue reading
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Michael Hardy (known on stage as simply Hardy) moved to Nashville at 19-years-old with dreams of becoming a songwriter. He had grown up in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town of about 8,000 not known for much beyond Marty Stuart and casinos. But it didn’t take long for him to make some noise, penning songs for Florida-Georgia Line and Morgan Wallen among others. Continue reading
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Trae Crowder grew up in rural Tennessee, a little town called Celina that’s not near anything, really. It’s situated a few miles south of the Kentucky state line, and it’s about as far northeast of Nashville as it is northwest of Knoxville. Crowder parlayed that life into viral fame as “The Liberal Redneck,” a series of videos on YouTube and Facebook in which he discussed his political views; views that often sounded strange coming from his accent, at least, to people not from around here.
Along with his writing partners and comedy team, Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan Forrester, he published a book titled Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin Dixie Outta the Dark. The trio has toured non-stop in recent years, and they’ve been featured on The View, Real Time with Bill Maher, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, and CNN Tonight with Don Lemon. They also have a podcast and a live album. They’ve stayed busy. Continue reading
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Hayes Carll is an honorary Alabamian of sorts, having married his longtime partner and Monroeville native Allison Moorer earlier this year. But he’s a Texan at heart. He was raised on Willie Nelson and Townes Van Zandt before making his way to Nashville, where the couple now resides. Continue reading
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Blake Ells 