Ashley McBryde's 'Lindeville' is a glorious detour into downhome character studies
On the recent September morning when the Country Music Association announced its latest round of award nominees, Ashley McBryde awoke to texts from her team. She'd racked up five nods, one for female vocalist of the year and the rest for a chart-topping collaboration with a fellow star, all of it recognition of recent achievement according to her industry's established benchmarks.
Two years out from her second major-label album, Never Will, McBryde was due for a third. If she followed convention and continued the musical approach she'd made her calling card so far, presumably, she must be at work on a full-length elaborating on her consummate, red-blooded blend of country's tough and tender extremes. That was only part of the reality, she clarifies: "You write all year and you make a record — in this case, we made two different ones."
McBryde did, indeed, complete the sort of album people now anticipate from her, but decided that its release could wait. Another project had to come first: , a mischievous, and mightily pleasing, departure from the prescribed progression of a mainstream country career. It's titled more like a grand, group production than a solo album, and for good reason: It's a heartily witty concept album about a fictional hamlet and the untidy intricacies of its working-class residents, performed by half a dozen singer-songwriters in additionFully half of the tracks she chose to sing lead on are riffs on old-school radio jingles, each pitching a made-up diner, pawnshop or funeral home.
