New Albums
ANDERSON EAST
Maybe We Never Die
ELEKTRA/LOW COUNTRY SOUND
8/10
The studio’sa playground on audacious postmodern mélange
As an Americana singer-songwriter, Anderson East – an Alabama preacher’s son blessed with a rich, rangy voice – is right out of central casting, and his first two albums put him comfortably in that rustic box. But on his third LP, the 32-year-old and his co-producers, mentor Dave Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell) and bandleader Philip Towns, have gleefully tossed the box aside, enlivening East’s introspective R&B/gospel/country-rooted songs with every sonic trick imaginable – including jeep-rattling funk basslines (“Falling”, “Drugs”), 1980s-treated drums (“Hood Of My Car”), Sam Smithstyle falsetto grandstanding (the title cut) and mid-century orchestral opulence (“If You Really Love Me”). At turns playful and philosophical, this inspired act of stylistic liberation delivers one infectious moment after another.