HomeEF CountryCorey Kent - 'Blacktop' album review

Corey Kent – ‘Blacktop’ album review

Corey Kent may have been a performer for a long time – he was just 11 when he started out as the lead singer of a touring Western swing band in his home town of Buxby, Oklahoma – but it’s safe to say 2022 was his breakthrough year, culminating in 2023 with ‘Wild as Her’ providing him with his first number one hit and debut album, ‘Blacktop,’ released this Friday (June 2nd).

The path to success hasn’t always been easy for Kent. After losing a publishing deal in Nashville in 2019, Kent moved his family to Texas and paused his career for a while due to the pandemic. He eventually found himself working for a time pouring concrete to make ends meet before finding success with his version of ‘Wild As Her’, a sleeper hit that left Nashville labels scrambling to sign him. ‘Blacktop’ is the culmination of a long journey for this interesting and authentic artist at the start of his major label career.

In interviews Kent references artists like Eric Church and Turnpike Troubadours as being influences on him in terms of authenticity and integrity and that comes across on ‘Blacktop’ in terms of the sonics and the lyrics but there’s also a Heartland Rock tinge to a number of the songs that hint at artists as wide ranging as Tom Petty and Bryan Adams too. Paint the whole thing with a kind of 80s production sheen and you’ve got an incredibly accessible album with a number of big hits in waiting and crowd-pleasing anthems guaranteed to make you want to pump your first in the air if you are going to see Jason Aldean this summer, with Kent in tow as support.

It makes sense to make ‘Wild as Her’ the opening track on ‘Blacktop’. That song has been everybody’s introduction to Corey Kent and it serves as a welcome, familiar opening here. ‘Wild as Her’ has an intensity and an urgency that is infectious, built upon the layers of Kent’s soulful, gruff vocals, that echoes an artist like Zach Bryan whilst also bringing a touch of commercial Country to proceedings too. So in that respect, he is the perfect halfway house between earthy, independent artists like Bryan, like Jason Isbell and Turnpike Troubadours whilst at the same time echoing major label singers like Parker McCollum and Jackson Dean.

That duality can be found all over ‘Blacktop’ in interesting and diverse ways. ‘Something’s Gonna Kill Me’ is a Rock leaning number with a cracking break out in the first chorus as Kent sings about life’s rollercoaster events and keeping the devil on his toes. A terrific guitar solo heralds the song’s final, uplifting third as we coast along in a kind of Heartland Rock wave of joy. Similarly, ‘Call it a Night’ sees Kent romping through another big guitar song with Bryan Adams overtones as he delivers a ‘woh oh’ chorus and lyrics about ‘small town summers’ that evoke a kind of 80s ‘halcyon days’ esque spirit whilst ‘Hood of That Car’, which might well contain the catchiest chorus on the album, barrels along in a blaze of guitars and bombastic drums as Kent sings about young love in a very evocative and powerful way.

Elsewhere, away from the Rock bombast, ‘Blacktop’ is an altogether more tender beast. ‘Man of the House’ is a tender meaningful look at single parent families and absent fathers, speaking to the pressure placed on young boys when their dads leave, die or have to be away from the family home for protracted lengths of time. It is an original and very relatable song. Kent talks about being ‘More worried about momma than running and playing outside,’ and how ‘she had enough on her plate so I tried to take his place.’ Storytelling like this has bags of soul and elevates Corey Kent above the morass of other male solo artists trying to make it in Country music right now. Similarly, ‘How You Know You’ve Made It’, an earthy song jam-packed with integrity, is an original mix of quiet, intense pauses and big, sweeping moments of bombast. ‘I’m taking in the moment,’ Kent sings, ‘I’m already holding that dream I’ve been chasing,’ he states, full of gratitude for the simpler things in life as he channels that intriguing mix of Bryan Adams arena joy and Oklahoma soul. Album closer, ‘Once or Twice’ is where we see that Oklahoma soul at its most potent. An atmospheric ballad designed for intimate performances and songwriter rounds, Kent sings about knowing when to walk away from a situation and when to hold your ground and fight on a song that sounds like Zach Bryan jamming with Jackson Dean. Gruff vocals combined with bags of heart and soul here, that’s Kent’s USP and he does it incredibly well.

You can tell an artist has something special when they can take tried and tested Country tropes and make them sound fresh and original. Corey Kent does that superbly on ‘Gone as You’ and ‘Bic Flame’. The former is a well trodden tale of a girl leaving at the speed of light and the boy standing behind in the dust. ‘If you need me, baby, I’ll be here in your rear-view,’ Kent sings on what you might think is just another one of ‘those’ songs but in Kent’s hands, with a couple of original, brave structural choices and musically surprising moments it has a unique and fresh feel to it. Similarly, ‘Bic Flame’, a song that might well become a live classic and something of a signature song for Corey Kent, we get a familiar tale of an artist searching for originality, casting himself as something of a man-out-of-time, left behind by the modern age. Kent sings about seeing ‘10,000 lighters’ lighting up the dark at concerts by the likes of Dylan and the Stones back in the day. He touches on vinyl, on old Levi jeans and explores what it means to have an old soul on this big, anthemic song in a way that turns a familiar sentiment into something that feels both personal and relatable, breathing new life into an old idea done already very well by the likes of artists like Eric Church and Lee Brice.

The issue Kent’s team are going to have with ‘Blacktop’ is not with what songs to send to radio but what songs NOT to send to radio, there are that many potential hits here. A song like ‘Long Story Short’ could slay over the airwaves with its classic Americana, hand-out-of-the-window vibes but similarly, something darker and more daring, like ‘Man of the House’ might also work too. Taking this album out on the road with a full band is also a must. We saw him in the UK earlier in the year as an acoustic performer at the C2C festival in London, which was all well and good, but ‘Blacktop’ is an album meant for full band, full throttle performances. There’s an innocence and joy to the songs on ‘Blacktop’, but that duality we mentioned earlier in the review also means there’s a wisdom and a kind of world-weary knowledge behind a lot of what is on offer here too. It doesn’t feel like a typical debut album: there’s more at play here than that. There’s an experience and a deft touch at work that elevates a chorus here, that improves a bridge there or brings in a moment of spontaneity that means this is a rewarding listen where your favourite song will change from play to play, depending on your own mood and what you want to get out of the album. Integrity and depth is not something you’d expect from an artist at this stage of their career but you get that in spades on ‘Blacktop’ and you’ll also find some of the catchiest choruses that artists like Parker McCollum, Dustin Lynch and Chris Janson would love to get their hands on too which, all in all, makes this a pretty perfect debut release and an album that should provide a pretty strong foundation for the years to come.

Corey Kent
Credit: Sony Music

Tracklist: 1. Wild as Her 2. Long Story Short 3. Something’s Gonna Kill Me 4. Man of the House 5. Gone as You 6. Bic Flame 7. Call it a Night 8. How You Know You Made It 9. Hood of That Car 10. Once or Twice Record Label: Sony Music Release Date: Friday 2nd June Buy ‘Blacktop’ now

Must Read

Advertisement
Corey Kent may have been a performer for a long time – he was just 11 when he started out as the lead singer of a touring Western swing band in his home town of Buxby, Oklahoma – but it’s safe to say 2022...Corey Kent - 'Blacktop' album review