By now the fact that Chris Stapleton is considered one of the most appreciated American songwriters of recent years is well established (he wrote a lot and also songs made famous by international artists) but in 2017 the confirmation that everyone was waiting for the second album. The debut date of 2015, the award-winning Traveller, was a real crack. One of those that rarely happens, a first job of such a high quality that had immediately projected him into the Olympus of the great Outlaws. Here is the gap to which everyone was waiting for Stapleton was largely overcome, indeed it can be said with certainty that, if possible, the bearded Chris moved the bar even higher. The title explained that ours had not finished to amaze and in fact in the same year came out Volume 2. In this work the absolute center of the compositions is his uvula that makes it unique in the American music scene. Maybe only in a couple of rock and blues songs, Second One To Know and the funny Them Stems, the voice is not the main attraction. The first one above all is a clear musical homage to his past in the cult southern band Jompson Brothers, an ironic text and a riff that drags. Stapleton is a modern Waylon Jennings but the use of the vocal part, as if it were an instrument, makes it look like the great crooners of the past, a sort of Frank Sinatra “outlaw style“. A record that lasts only 33 minutes for 9 pieces. Not a second out of place. The opening of the work with Broken Halos, a song that ran for a while in his live performances and dedicated to a dear friend who died, immediately makes it clear that in Nashville in Studio A where the album was recorded (hence the title) he can fit in, and as great as in the past there were Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. And just from Nelson, Stapleton borrows the second piece Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning and does not regret the original, indeed. The highest part of the record is certainly represented by the poignant acoustic ballad Either Way, a love story over and a song that tears the soul. A voice that enters and leaves its mark. Shivers are guaranteed. But then comes I Was Wrong , a delicate blues that could have come out of the BB King’s chords and the main character of the lyrics that screams his mistakes to his ex as a bluesman of Delta, and then we understand that maybe the bottom of the record will not come. Absolutely to quote Without Your Love a deep and heartfelt declaration of love that has as always in the sung his strong point and the fantastic counter-song of his wife Morgane here reaches the perfect conjunction. The strong love for the wife is another strong point for the musical life of this artist and just see any video live on Youtube, to realize the completely human and artistic that can give the two. The record closes with the last thoughts of a condemned to death in prison, the squeal of the doors of the cells, the blues guitar and the bass, the voice that screams desperate to the world the last wills from death row (Death Row). “Don’t want no preacher man to come around
/ I don’t need him to lay my burden down / Already told Jesus everything I know”, a man who has long accepted his end. Just as we have to accept that of a wonderful record. Exciting and intense, perfect in its brevity. The album will be completed only a few months later with From A Room : Volume 2, another masterpiece that confirms the unique talent of this bearded man from Kentucky.
Good listening,
Trex Willer by http://www.magazzininestistenti.it
(you can find italian article on the blog at this link : https://www.trexroads.com/from-a-room-volu…s-stapleton-2017/ )
