Review: Colter Wall, Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs

If you’re looking for gritty old-west nostalgia, there’s likely no one better suited to provide it than Colter Wall. It’s a well-trod selling point by now, but his dynamic baritone remains impressive – instantly timeless and surprisingly effortless, it contains none of the put-upon camp of fellow country crooner Orville Peck. Wall doesn’t trade in irony, and his song writing isn’t classic with a twist – it’s just classic. His new record, Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs, sounds like some lost bargain bin country gem. 

Wall’s affinity for the Old West™ and its (mostly white) renegades run so deep as to be transporting and slightly questionable – it’s an odd choice, given our current political climate, to write an ode* to the Rocky Mountain Rangers of 1885, a cavalry unit formed to control and subdue Indigenous rebellion. 

Still, one can be wary of Wall’s apparently rose-coloured politics and appreciate the dust-blown magic that he spins - Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs is mostly made of originals, but you’d likely be unable to parse Wall’s songs from the traditionals that he covers. He’s the rare throwback act that feels truly committed and truly not of our time – for better and for worse. 

Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs was released August 28, 2020 on La Honda Records/Thirty Tigers
Listen to it here.

*UPDATE: Colter Wall’s team wishes to clarify that the song Rocky Mountain Rangers is a parody, not an ode, as posted to his Instagram on August 5, 2020.

Colter Wall Cowpoke ℗ 2020 La Honda Records