Canaan Smith - Bronco

Canaan Smith
Bronco
2015

Canaan Smith's debut album Bronco at times follows the current country model: Women, Trucks, Hometown and Drinking but then sometimes lets you in on something deep and really pretty. The horse has been beaten to death of how country songs sound exactly the same these days and while it may be true it doesn't really move the needle when trying to really look into an album, unless the transgressions are so blatant that you can't help but be drawn to them. Bronco is just another country album but it doesn't overtly sound generic. Canaan Smith has a good voice and leads a band that doesn't try to play pop music or Country EDM, instead he functions as more of a singer songwriter more than anything. He is even able to pepper in a bit of a funky sound on many of the tracks here.

In the later tracks on the album Smith looses some of the twangy down home sound and gets a bit more R&Bish. The songs get heavier with the title track "Bronco" even talking about his brother who passed away in a car accident. You can tell from the writing that the event rocked Smith to his core and gives this record more of a soul than it would have had otherwise. It's hard with this record because there is a great deal to like, but also a great deal that is so pedestrian. You find yourself really wanting to like Canaan Smith, but you want him to be the deep soulful person that he can be not the cookie cutter country music star that he often is. This is only his first release so only time will tell which path he chooses.

5 out of 10