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CHRIS STAPLETON'S HARD "WAY"

How do you follow the most explosive entrance onto the top of the country charts since Big & Rich saved a horse and Gretchen Wilson got all redneck woman? Going from well-loved insider/tastemaker secret to Garden & Gun cover guy in the space of one incendiary performance with Justin Timberlake on the 2015 CMA Awards, Chris Stapleton became a supernova with his wide-open soul/blues take on country.

The Kentucky native, who came out of bluegrass by way of the Steeldrivers, had all eyes on Songs from a Room, Vol. 1, the follow-up to his platinum-plus Traveller, the Phases & Stages­-evoking song cycle inspired by the loss of his father.

Covered by no less than Adele, as well as providing marquee hits for Luke Bryan ("Drink A Beer"), Thomas Rhett ("Crash & Burn") and Kenny Chesney ("Never Wanted Nothing More"), Stapleton doubles down. Rather than moving closer to the mainstream on the new set, the grizzled songwriter gets even more intimate.

On single "Either Way," a few hushed notes from a muffled guitar, falling earthy and full onto shag carpeting in a paneled room with the lights off, there is nothing else. Just over four measures of guitar and its resonance in the room, a soft male voice almost conversationally offers, "We pass in the hall," pausing, not quite sighing, "on our way to separate rooms…"

The broken baritone drifts up like exhaled cigarette smoke. Almost talking to himself, mulling the state of the home front, not even wondering how it came to this as the truth spills over. “The only time we ever talk is when the monthly bills are due” arrives evenly, then the confession starts pushing the meter, pushing the tempo slightly faster, running the words—"we go to work, we go to church, we fake the perfect life"—together. Seemingly two beats after knowing, the singer reckons with his bleak future. Confessing softly, "I’m past the point of give a damn, all my tears are cried," this is the part where the knowing, not the waiting, is the hardest part. Suspended above the truth, the singer is wrestling something almost too heavy to bear.

That’s when Chris Stapleton throws back his head and lets out a primal wail. It’s the sound of a soul tearing itself in two; that tone tempered by good whiskey, the razor in his throat tears through the tension, the quiet, the dignity he’s maintained. When he moves from the slight velocity increase of “We can just go…” to the wide open “ooonnnn… LIKE this,” the wide open, inside out pain in his voice shows why he’s a singer’s singer and a witness to the human condition in the most profound ways.

Something so quiet, where the silence and the waves rippling to the edge of the sonic imprint are almost as important as what’s played or sung, is shocking. As the chorus unfurls, Stapleton’s voice keeps throwing for the rafters. If “say the word, we’ll call it quits” feels more tempered even with the “call” dragged out and twisted, the control of “You can go or you can stay…” is deceptive. The indictment, delivered without vitriol, is so right in the pocket, the judgment delivered. It’s not without sentiment, but it is without emotion.

Rather than moving closer to the mainstream on the new set,
the grizzled songwriter gets even more intimate.

For whatever there was, this is beyond ashes. After all that soul-busting hydraulic vocalism, the even-handed “I won’t love you anyway” is the most damning truth imaginable. If the opposite of love isn’t hate but indifference, “Either Way” represents the realm of how burned out, charred and cold what once was has become.

In an age where divorce is almost as frequent as marriage, the notion of staying in it—for appearances, for the kids, for the money—is harder to conjure than it used to be. All that silent suffering, the inertia of a happily ever after that’s now void, is suspended in every extended note of the chorus; Stapleton understands that numb vacuum with a sense that exists beyond words. It is disquieting to hear, and breathtaking to recognize.

With country radio more rhythm-driven, more glandular rock, more hyper-pop than ever, “Either Way” sands off the superficial and the artifice for something turpentine and kerosene can fix. Raw and unfiltered, this is art and truth, and the reality that folks who can’t afford to get a divorce know intimately. If it finds a home on country radio, the impact could be almost as profound as “Tennessee Whiskey.”

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