This week’s platter of new country music includes Brothers Osborne‘s return with a new four-song project and Kane Brown‘s high-octane, fiddle-washed release, while CCM/country artist Anne Wilson teams up with country hitmaker Jordan Davis. See all this and more Billboard favorites from the past week below.
Brothers Osborne, “Break Mine”
A non-committal night of passion could prove just the elixir two lovers are seeking. TJ Osborne lends his earthy, sultry drawl to lines such as “If you’re looking for a heart to break/ Get here in a straight line,” while John Osborne’s blues-dipped guitar shredding gets layered with piano and percussion. The title track to the multiple CMA- and ACM-winning sibling duo’s new four-song EP, “Break Mine” was written by the Brothers along with Shane McAnally and Pete Good.
Kane Brown, “Fiddle in the Band”
Crashing guitars, relentless pounding percussion, hand claps and the requisite blazing fiddle are on a tear in Brown’s latest release. Here, a tale of a night out on the town, hopping from bar to bar, gets a slight twist; it’s not the general party scene or some lover he’s chasing, but rather the varied strains of music, from country to pop to hip-hop. The chorus delves deeper into his passionate connection with a far-flung array of sounds, drawing inspiration from everything from Memphis blues to the country sounds emanating from Nashville “I’m like a burnt CD from ‘03 in a Mustang/ You never knew what was coming,” he sings. This song is a hold-on-tight, rocket ride of high-octane music. Brown wrote the song with Gabe Foust, Jordan Walker and Russell Sutton.
Wyatt Flores, “Wish I Could Stay”
This Oklahoma native with the precociously wise songwriting style has seen his nascent career surge on the power of his songs, including the pleading “Please Don’t Go” and “Break My Bones.” Flores’ latest is a mingling of slide guitars and piano with his unfiltered, conversational vocal style, which can deftly and spontaneously run from rock-tinged angst to old-school country twang. The contemplative “Wish I Could Stay,” written by Flores with David DeVaul, centers on wanting to remain in a meaningful moment indefinitely, “’cause love gets the best of us all.” “Wish I Could Stay” is from his upcoming new EP, Half Life, which is due in April and follows his previous release, last year’s Life Lessons.
Anne Wilson with Jordan Davis, “Country Gold”
Jordan Davis and CCM/country artist Anne Wilson team up for this ode to the sometimes overlooked simple pleasures of rural living, where the concept of wealth takes on a different configuration — true friendships, building a home from the ground up and miles of fields and gravel roads. Wilson wrote the song with her longtime collaborators, Jeff Pardo and CCM singer-songwriter Matthew West.
“The richest people that I’ve ever known/ found country gold,” they sing. Their harmonies mesh well, with Davis’ pristine country vocal a solid foil for Wilson’s sky-reaching, vocal charisma.
Dylan Gossett, “If I Had a Lover”
“Coal” hitmaker and Texas native Gossett offers up a new batch of songs on his new EP Songs in the Gravel — including “If I Had a Lover,” for which he teams with Ian Fitchuk (Kacey Musgraves, James Bay). The song launches with simply Gossett’s burnished vocal and an accompanying harmony on the engaging chorus, before warm guitar and percussion fall into place. He’s broke and single, but sings wistfully of his plans if he had a lover and a dollar. “If I had a dollar I’d sell the whole holler and buy that girl a ring,” he sings. Gossett’s career has surged since his viral hit “Coal,” but with “If I Had a Lover,” “Somewhere Between” and more songs from his upcoming project, he’s proven he has plenty of top-shelf musical gems in his arsenal.
Ashlie Amber, “Keep You Around”
She was hellbent on staying single, until an unexpected encounter brings a change of heart. A swirl of harmonies and R&B/country/pop grooves collide admirably with Amber’s sultry, airy vocal on this dancefloor-ready track. “Keep You Around” is from Amber’s upcoming EP MO.
