The Devil I Know

Ashley McBryde

Released on 08/09/2023 by Warner Music Nashville
Main artists: Ashley McBryde
Genre: Country

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Ashley McBryde had been kicking around Nashville for 13 years when she won the CMA's Best New Artist award in 2019. All those years of experience—and determination—inform her third album. As with 2020's sharp and fun Never Will, McBryde sounds assured on tracks like the stomping and super-upbeat "Made for This," which borrows a riff from The Wallflowers' "The Difference" and tells the story of touring her butt off before her big break: "Adderall/ alcohol/ Your dressing room is a bathroom stall/ But you turn it on when the big man calls/ Because he ain't gonna call you twice." Now that she's made it, she's part of a new wave of badass female country artists—think Lainey Wilson—who are unapologetically themselves even as they follow in the footsteps of fellow strongwomen like Reba McEntire and K.T. Oslin. ("Single at the Same Time"—a what-if of wondering how might things had played differently with a just-friend— sounds like it could've been lifted from the latter's catalog.) It takes that backbone to write and sing a song like "Learn to Lie," which McBryde has said is about her own family—and admitted that she warned her mother it would be hard to hear but "none of it is untrue." "I think my father did the best that he could do/ He rarely made it to the dinner table/ Said he was working late, but he was working late/ Fogging up the windows of an '89 Sable," she sings. As a charged guitar solo builds the song to powerful heights, she confesses how that family history taught her to lie as well: "I hate that it runs in my blood/ I hate how easy that it comes" … "I learned how to say things I don't mean/ Like 'stay' when I want you to leave." "The Devil I Know," with its irresistible melody and hard-rocking banger of a chorus, is equally emotive, with McBryde hollering about independence, "Mama says get my ass to church/ Daddy says get my ass to work ... Hell, there's hell everywhere I go/ So I'm sticking with the devil I know." "Blackout Betty" embraces Southern rock and the way a hangover can leave you questioning life choices. "Coldest Beer in Town" has an Indigo Girls shuffle, and "Light on in the Kitchen"—a low-key celebration of homespun wisdom passed down from generation to generation—puts the spotlight on slow-hand guitar. Brothers Osborne's John Osborne gets a co-write credit on honky-tonk bluesy "Whiskey and Country Music" with its George Jones reference ("One gets me drunk as the possum/ The other pours in a glass"). And hootenanny "Cool Little Bars" establishes a sisterhood with co-writer Lainey Wilson over a shared love of places with a cigarette machine, jukebox with "songs you don't hear much anymore" and "an old pickle jar sitting on the bar." As McBryde sings: "I pray time just forgets to turn places like this into drive-thrus and condos." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

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The Devil I Know

Ashley McBryde

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Made For This