Eric Church Mr. Misunderstood

Arriving after the deliberately overblown The Outsiders – an outlaw album pumped up on steroids, gaining its resonance through its slow songs – Mr. Misunderstood feels like a correction: a swift, modest album shorn of excess, released without an iota of pre-release hype. Devoid of the arena rock feints that dogged The Outsiders – there are no two-part metallic jams, no salutations to damn rock & roll – Mr. Misunderstood is hardly a back-to-basics move or a refutation of his over-amplified indulgences. Rather, this 2015 record pulls together the strands Church left hanging on his 2014 set, never shuffling country and rock – or blues or soul, for that matter – into their own categories…

Don't take the title Desperate Man too seriously. Eric Church doesn't sound at the end of his rope on his sixth album; he sounds settled in his skin, assured that he doesn't have to try too hard. Which isn't to say he doesn't try on Desperate Man – quite the opposite, actually.