Purgatory

Audio Mixer: David Ferguson .Recording information: The Butcher Shoppe, Nashville, TN.The presence of Sturgill Simpson as producer immediately places Tyler Childers' 2017 album Purgatory within a recognizable lineage of new Americana singers. Simpson, along with the burlier Chris Stapleton, are torch-bearers for the old ways -- old ways that became codified in the '70s, when country, folk, string bands, Western swing, R&B, and rock & roll bled together in styles alternately called outlaw and progressive country. Childers hails from Kentucky, the same as Simpson, but Purgatory often sounds like the Appalachian Mountains in how his high lonesome voice ricochets off sawing fiddles and skipping banjos. As a simple description, this may sound traditional but, in practice, Purgatory feels fresh, due largely to how Childers -- who writes all ten songs here -- isn't stuck in the past; he's viewing everything through the prism of the present. His purer string tunes bear allusions to the