"They're the in crowd, we're the other ones/It's a different kind of cloth that we're cut from." On his fourth album, country's favourite rebel makes a virtue of being "other" in a world of bro-country, so-called because of its laddish penchant for beer and babes. Church, no stranger to celebrating a longneck himself, sees himself less as a crossover idol and more in the direct line of outlaws Waylon and Willie. So while there's no shortage of rockist crash chords and big, rumbling, ominous settings, at heart Church is just a country boy running through an updated series of tropes, musical and lyrical, albeit to good effect. Country's remove from its well-spring of Hank Williams and that cultural hinterland leaves it struggling for definition, caught between a vivid past and a muddy present. Church sees the problem but is his answer the solution? ericchurch.com
Download: The Outsiders, Talladega