Five years are many or few? It depends on the perspective with which you look at them, certainly in the life of an artist are many. In five years some artists are able to release 5 records, in five years even legendary bands are created and dissolved, the water under the bridge in five years is really a lot, but sometimes it is the only way to re-emerge. In 2017, Indiana native Alex Williams, an adopted Texan, released his debut album Better Than Myself on Big Machine Records. So suddenly, without a real experience on the road or years of training behind him. A double bet for the most famous pop country label that outlaw country, of which Williams was preparing to become a new star. It was a record that struck me at the time, certainly not perfect, but it was pretty damn old-fashioned for Nashville that mattered. That’s what I was looking for. The life of the musician, the side not illuminated by the spotlight, however, hit the good Alex like a train running in the face. The whole package of releasing a successful album, in addition to the great live experiences that have formed him as an artist, opened the concerts of people like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hank Williams Jr., even the excesses that usually follow. Alex Williams is now no longer a kid with no band and no experience, but a man who has millions of streaming in his music pages and tours of thousands of dates up and down the United States: he has made these 5 years fruitful, if so! His second album can be considered as a new beginning, the beginning of a career that will become a reference for all future outlaw country musicians. The genre invented by the greats of the past, Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson (although he is a great also of the present), now has precise references in today’s artists, characters who have traced the way: Cody Jinks, Dallas Moore, Whitey Morgan, Creed Fisher. Musicians who have never compromised and play the real country of people and for people. Well, friends now, add Alex Williams‘ name to those names. Before I tell you about the album, honorable mention for the wonderful cover made by the great Texas artist Zachary Nelson, after that for the last of Whiskey Myers, another masterpiece to add to the collection of a small genius of the artwork. Press play and you will be catapulted into the world of country damned outlaw as in the 70s, but absolutely current of this record: No Reservations is scratchy guitar, is deep and intense voice, is street rhythm and slide, is life on the road. Start with a bang. In the following Old Before My Time the experience of endless tours that in the first song had been taken with joy and lightheartedness, makes him reflect instead on the fact that, a sense of fatigue and old age a little too early, has reached him. The song is a fast honky tonk with that wonderfully vintage voice. A time travel like when Waylon was still walking on this earth. How beautiful! Thank you Alex! The band behind Williams is pure quality, as well as the elegant and precise production of Ben Fowler and you notice it in the beautiful ballads like Rock Bottom. The guitar solo is a sparkling beauty, so much seventies, but the harmonica of the great Mickey Raphael is a jewel that makes everything shine. Want to know how an outlaw country song sounds? Higher Road is a perfect example: country furrowed by electricity and pedal-steel that intertwine and speed on the highway. The title track is the attempt to put an end to inner conflicts, making peace with yourself is the way and the piece is supported by the baritone voice of Williams, so intense, so emotional. It’s electric in the chorus, but the piece has an epic soul, like a piece from the golden years. The final solo is beauty. One of the songs of the year in independent music. The Best Thing is the country love of the past that never leaves us, this boy bred from Texas has received all the beauty, All the excitement, all the poems of the great Texians and he developed them in his music and sings it to us riding towards sunset like a real cowboy, while he tells his ex that leaving was the best thing that could happen to her. Did you relax with the sweet ride before? Here now take your convertible and whizz away to the rhythm of Double Nickel, honky tonk fast and fun, where the Williams band chases each other in a song that live will unleash crowds. Honesty and sincerity could only lead to the two wonderful ballads that close the album: The Struggle and The Vice. Two beautiful pieces about a man who discovered his demons too early and now feels an old soul in the skin of a young man. Two pieces of country that taste like Texas dust, that taste like the ’70s and that make you excited and get goosebumps. This is the outlaw country, a music that speaks of inner demons, of travels and returns from the abyss, of lives at the limit, but of true and lacerating feelings, of sincere confessions and lost and found loves. You will find all this and more in these beautiful and sparkling 12 pieces of independent country, the one that flies from mouth to mouth, from fan to fan, from concert to concert and like a snowball that falls from above unstoppable, It’s getting bigger and bigger, as is the success Alex Williams deserves. Cody Jinks and Whitey Morgan make room at the table, there’s one more big name to add to the guests.
Good listening,
Trex Willer by http://www.ticinonotizie.it
(you can find original italian article at this link : https://www.ticinonotizie.it/alex-williams-waging-peace-2022-by-trex-roads/ )
