Eric Church’s The Outsiders leaves listeners in an interesting place. On one hand, The Outsiders is very much a country album. Many of the genre’s boilerplate themes are represented on the album—Church sings about his hometown, adolescence, cars, women—and if you took a shot every time he mentions whiskey you’d end up in a hospital.
“Talladega,” “Give Me Back My Hometown” and “Cold One” represent Church’s obligatory attempts to make his way to the top of the charts. “A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young” tries to show off Church’s soft side, and “Roller Coaster Ride” has “listen to me while you drink” written all over it. However, it’s the rest of the album that really shines.
It seems that while writing and recording The Outsiders, Church got bored of writing country songs and decided to sprinkle a few songs into the album that sometimes feel like they have no right to be there.
The album starts off with the title track, and it sets off a vision for the rest of the album that doesn’t really hold true. “The Outsiders” is Church’s “Wanted Dead or Alive,” and he treats it as such. Between the murky bass, choirs and handclaps, “The Outsiders” tries to show diversity in Church’s songwriting, and, to an extent, achieves its goal.
“Broke Record” and “That’s Damn Rock & Roll” show off the same style, but “The Outsiders” is by far the best example of what Church is attempting to do with his album.
However, the most interesting track is “Devil, Devil (Prelude: Princess of Darkness)” An eight minute odyssey in which Church does nothing but talk over percussion and acoustic guitars, the song is Church’s ultimate attempt to branch out in a new musical direction.
Overall, The Outsiders can at times be a somewhat predictable, asinine country record. However, those parts of the album that show Church’s willingness to experiment and try new things make the album worth a listen.
Rating: B
