To say it’s been a pretty wild year for country music and the world in general simply wouldn’t be doing it justice, and for evidence proving as much, just flip on the nightly news and check out whatever variety of tribulations they’re discussing this time.
URL: https://www.chrischitseymusic.com/
But even with this being the case, a one-of-a-kind player by the name of Chris Chitsey isn’t letting anything come between his artistry and the audience he wants to satisfy with his cool country charms in the new single – and would-be theme song – “Every Small Town.” Stylish and swaggering but still sporting just enough grittiness to be a true blue country song at its core, “Every Small Town” is a track that offers up a little consistency in some of the more uncertain times I can recall in my lifetime.
The interplay between the vocal, percussion, and violin parts is much stronger than I was expecting it would be, and even as the song presses forward, there’s a lumbering sense of beefiness to the instrumentation that stands in stark contrast with the sort of aesthetical waters Chitsey was treading in his last two or three singles. What he’s utilizing here has a lot more in common with a classic rock setup than it does anything you’d find in the typical Nashville recording studio, while the compositional integrities of “Every Small Town” feel largely indebted to the pop model over others that immediately come to mind. It’s a hybrid for sure, but not the extreme act of rebelliousness that would lead to longtime fans abandoning Chris Chitsey anytime soon.
There’s so much confidence in Chitsey’s execution in this single, and whether we’re talking about his fretwork or the electrifying lead vocal that he’s putting at the forefront of the action, his swaggering attitude and laid-back persona are infectious to put it very mildly. “Every Small Town,” was it slowed down just a bit and given an acoustic backbone instead of the elemental pop it’s provided in this setting, would be a lot heavier a soulful ballad than it is here, but it’s the amplified vitality of the band’s volume that makes it a stinger. They’ve got something to share, and rather than muting it behind a lot of useless sonic props, they’re putting it right out there for us to soak up from the jump.
“Every Small Town” packs a heck of a lot more punch than I was anticipating as prepared to sit down with the song for the very first time this week, but that could be why it’s my favorite Chris Chitsey song to see widespread release so far. He’s giving us the whole nine yards here, and sounding like the real deal the entire time, and even though it could be another minute or two before we get back to seeing a stable mainstream, he gives us a fair idea of what we can look forward to once he’s onto the right stage. Chitsey is doing his part to keep country charismatic, and he has all of my support for it.
Mindy McCall