Right off the bat, Kentucky-born country artist Sturgill Simpson’s sophomore release, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, raises a critical question: What exactly is metamodernism? There are many definitions, but it can be best described as an extension of ideas and philosophies developed in reaction to postmodernism. Metamodernism’s aim is not to rehash old forms, but to borrow elements from frameworks of the past and take them in directions that seemed inconceivable at the moment of their creation.
Maybe it’s Simpson voice, which bears a striking similarity to Waylon Jennings’, but this release and last year’s High Top Mountain have led casual listeners and cultural commentators to peg Simpson as a modern-day facsimile of 1970s outlaw country. It’s a lazy assumption, one the singer rejects out of hand by way of his latest record’s title.
The 36-year-old has spent most of his life playing music, but it took a while to earn the recognition now rolling in, after a series of odd jobs and a stint in the Navy. His now-wife encouraged him to move to Nashville to give music a real chance, and that’s where his singular style bloomed.
If you think of Hank Williams or Lefty Frizell as modernists and Johnny Cash or David Allan Coe as postmodernists, Simpson’s aesthetic begins to make more sense. His approach isn’t to re-embody days long past, but to make an original statement altogether in his own time. You need only parse the words from Metamodern’s leadoff single, “Turtles All the Way Down,” to get the point. The tune sounds like a country track that might have been created by almost any artist at any point in the past 50 years, highlighting Simpson’s deep warble. But midway through, the music shifts into a cosmic, echo-inflected breakdown that isn’t really rooted in any form at all. Listen to the content and the lyrics—reptile aliens, LSD, different realms—and you’ll understand we’re not in Nashville anymore.
One of Metamodern’s best songs is Simpson’s take on “The Promise” by British new wave group When in Rome. On the surface, this is a song that shouldn’t work in a country format, and its inclusion here smacks of gimmickry. Then you press play—and by song’s end you’re wondering how it could have been arranged and performed any other way; it’s as tender a country ballad as the best of them. It takes great confidence to take on something so different, something so recognizable, and not only distort it in such a manner but turn it into something arguably better than the original—praise many listeners have lavished on it.
Simpson’s not an alternative, not an outlaw, not a torchbearer or an antidote. He’s simply a country artist producing the only kind of music he can in the service of his muse—one which is rendering him a leader in an exciting new period of country music.
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STURGILL SIMPSON With Lucette. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave., 789-3599, tractortavern.com. SOLD OUT. 8 p.m. Wed., Nov. 26.
