featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
May 12, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
December 2022, Adeem the Artist dropped White Trash Revelry, a collection that immediately wrenched-up my end-of-year lists. Adeem's country-folk spoke to issues of growing up queer in the conservative South, coming to terms with the church, and the state of blue collar America. Their songs were indelibly personal even as they spoke to common experiences of belonging, identity, and just getting by. Merely a week later, we released our Favorite Albums List for 2022, and slotted the Knoxville songwriter's record near the top of our ranking, rubbing shoulders with fellow essentials like SG Goodman, John Moreland, and Lee Bains.
This year, Adeem the Artist has given bloggers fair warning with the May release of their follow-up, Anniversary (Four Quarters). Produced by Butch Walker, the project continues to locate the sociopolitical in the personal, telling stories of wayward youth, domestic bliss, and societal upheaval. As he sings on "Night Sweats": The muscles still remember what we saw when we were young / Honey, wherever we are going, we'll take where we come from. As with their previous record and 2021's Cast Iron Pansexual, Adeem is more invested in making connections through speaking truth than they are in scoring points or landing solid ideological jabs.
The rushing, racing "There We Are" introduces Anniversary with a burst of cacophony, before riding the current into a flood of memory. One of a handful of songs about Adeem's relationship with their partner Hannah, the brief, Western-tinged number hurries us past pivotal moments from their meeting: There we are / You are laughing on a ceramic beast / With your hand relaxed on the brass pole / Impaling him / Our eyes are locked / And in my pocket, a ring of all things. That same wide-eyed couple skips across the country-rocking "Plot Of Land", searching for sure footing in minimum wage America. The song pauses for breath before tearing into a frenetic electric guitar solo that threatens to leave the tracks, but not before promising, We're gonna finally get planted and grow on this planet too.
As a self-identified pansexual, Adeem the Artist's highlight reel features a diverse range of experience that contributes to what they call songs as pieces of folk medicine. They recall a relationship on "One Night Stand" (Adeem calls it the gay 90s country bop you didn't know you needed), soundtracked to a melodically memorable guitar line: He wants a one night stand / I want a life full of nights with him. Another near-perfect country arrangement accompanies "Nancy", the story of a fiery fling. Anniversary benefits from producer Walker's cross-genre experience, building terrific-sounding music beds, especially for these fuller, more upbeat arrangements.
Adeem the Artist ably incorporates elements of country in their mix, but falls more snugly into the folk singer-songwriter tradition, as evidenced in several of the more acoustic-oriented moments on the new collection. "Wounded Astronaut" is a midtempo mea culpa, owning up to their sometimes disrespectful treatment of women in the past. The singer constructs their apology with piano, acoustic guitar and pedal steel: I was such a little wounded astronaut / Using women like accessories / Mirrors to reflect my broken parts. "Part & Parcel" features a typically lovely vocal, the singer betraying a touch of Southern twang in their delivery. "Socialite Blues" provides a change of pace, a flirty Piedmont-inspired blues with sassy horns: I found some Etta Baker records at a yard sale / And I wanna play 'em for you.
Anniversary's most effecting moments provide glimpses into Adeem the Artist's home life alongside their partner and child. Summing up the record, Adeem comments: This is an album about cycles. It's about the psychological imprint of trauma. It's about Anniversary as a concept and as an experience. "Carry You Down" is an acoustic ballad with a thoughtful arrangement that steadily adds banjo, horns, and pedal steel to a fingerpicked base. "Rotations" will likely compete among our year-end favorites, a heartbreakingly sweet ode to parenthood. Adeem sings of that sweet and beautiful eclipse, as we see our children in light of our own youth, recognizing how this circle game continues from one generation to the next: I know that you are not me / I would never ask you to be / You are more than I could honestly ever have expected to be true / But when I'm gone / You'll carry on / And carry all that is left of me with you. Punctuated with a tender muted trumpet solo and piano, it speaks well to the warm heart behind Adeem's music.
ROUTES-cast May 12, 2024
- Orville Peck, "Chemical Sunset (ft Allison Russell)" Stampede Vol 1 EP (Warner, 24)
- Emily Nenni, "I Don't Need You" Drive & Cry (New West, 24)
- Steve Earle, "Yer So Bad" Petty Country (Big Machine, Jun 21)
- Silverada, "Stay By Me" Silverada (Prairie Rose, Jun 28)
- Kiely Connell, "Damn Hands" My Own Company (Calumet Queen, Jul 19) D
- Lawrence Rothman, "Kerosene" Plow That Broke the Plains (KRO, 24)
- Miranda Lambert, "Wranglers" single (Republic, 24) D
- War & Treaty, "Leads Me Home" single (Mercury, 24) D
- LA Edwards, "Gone 4 U" single (Bitchin, 24) D
^ Adeem the Artist, "Wounded Astronaut" Anniversary (Four Quarters, 24)
- Secret Sisters, "Mama Now" single (New West, 24) D
- Arlo McKinley, "One Soul At a Time" Borrowed & Blue EP (Oh Boy, 24) D
- Karen Jonas, "Rich Man's Valley" Rise and Fall Of American Kitsch (Yellow Brick, Aug 9) D
- Will Kimbrough, "The Other Side" For the Life Of Me (Daphne, 24)
- Rachel Brooke, "Let Me Lose Again" single (MAL, 24) D
- Kim Richey, "Chapel Avenue" Every New Beginning (Yep Roc, May 24)
- Pokey LaFarge, "It's Not Over" Rhumba Country (New West, 24)
- Kelsey Waldon, "I've Endured" There's Always a Song (Oh Boy, 24)
- Rachel Baiman, "Piss and Vinegar (ft Caroline Spence)" single (Signature Sounds, 24) D
- Abigail Lapell, "Count On Me (ft Great Lakes Swimmers)" Anniversary (Outside, 24) D
- Hackles, "Oh Honey (ft Bart Budwig)" single (Jealous Butcher, 24) D
- Swamp Dogg, "Ugly Man's Wife" Blackgrass: From West Virginia To 125th Street (Oh Boy, May 31)
- Aaron Frazer, "Time Will Tell" Into the Blue (Dead Oceans, Jun 28)
- Angus & Julia Stone, "Down To the Sea" Cape Forestier (Nettwerk, 24)
- Bonny Light Horseman, "Old Dutch" Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free (Jagjaguwar, Jun 7)
- Myriam Gendron, "La Luz" Mayday (Thrill Jockey, 24)
- Good Looks, "Can You See Me Tonight" Lived Here For a While (Keeled Scales, Jun 7)
- Erin Rae, "Early Blue" single (Independent, 24) D
- Alex Izenberg, "Drinking the Dusk Away" Alex Izenberg & the Exiles (Domino, Jul 26)
- Spencer Thomas, "Little Gold" Joke Of Life (Strolling Bones, May 17) D
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