Neighborhood Is Changing

AMG Review of Neighborhood Is Changing

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

Solid debut from a promising alternative country artist whose voice, music, and words are all pretty out of the ordinary. The songs of love and romantic entanglement admit to violent impulses that would most likely be censored by the big labels; he uses metaphors like "Nuclear Winter" to talk about a breakup. Like Palace and Freakwater, he's got a knack for matching authentic-sounding Appalachian melodies and arrangements with smart and contemporary lyrics, though he's not as weird as Palace, and certainly weirder than Freakwater.