The prolific Luke Combs releases a fourth album in six years and reaffirms his desire not to think outside the box.
We saw Luke Combs in a packed Bell Center last fall. Not bad, but not quite living up to its popularity south of the border. His concert on Saturday gives him a more accurate image: he will sing at AT&T Stadium, the former residence of the Dallas Cowboys, an 80,000-seat stadium.
How did he reach this peak? He himself still wonders, in 5 Leaf Cloverone of the 18 songs of gettin’ old “How does a guy like me end up with a five-leaf clover, when he would have been satisfied with three? “, he sings, in his gravelly voice, on a country rock music anchored in the 1990s and embellished with violin.
Luke Combs never breaks his head. His music is predictable and he has a penchant for power ballads. And he sings the same things as everyone else: he talks about beer, broken hearts, his admiration for his father, the passage of time, progress that goes too fast, his pick-up and the boys. And if he sometimes finds turns that make for beautiful images, he is often very literal.
What is his secret, then? He doesn’t just stay on the beaten track, he deeply embodies that stability. Without purely artistic ambition or arrogance. His talent as an interpreter does most of the work. It’s obvious on Fast Car, the superb song by Tracy Chapman which he brilliantly covers. Luke Combs is an inhabited singer. And that’s enough.
Country
gettin’ old
Luke Combs
River House Artists/Sony