Mescalito (Reissue)

VINYL FORMAT. "Loneliness runs rampant in Texas, where arid flatlands and empty highways converge to influence some of country music's best songwriting. Ryan Bingham is happy to use such geography as his muse. Mescalito is a bilingual collection of Americana that often delves into roadhouse country-rock. To those familiar with the genre, Bingham's lyrics are somewhat predictable accounts of hard times, rivers' edges, and fieldwork, all sung in a wizened rasp whose sandpapered texture is impressive coming from a 25-year-old. Years of sleeping outside rodeo arenas in a truck bed have done a number on Bingham's throat, and when he croaks lyrics like, "I've been working in the goddamn sun for just one dollar a day," it's all too tempting to believe him. When he's singing about marijuana plants or casually slipping into Spanish during a Mexican ballad, Bingham truly distinguishes himself from his country contemporaries, playing the rugged outlaw to Nashville's smooth Rascal Flatts." – All Music