10 Standout Roots and Americana Albums of 2023 So Far
Jason Isbell- Weathervanes
“Best Of” lists have always been polarizing. Some people enjoy the roundup and some hate them for their reductive qualities. I personally love them because they give me a chance to catch up on some albums I missed during the year (or half-year as is the case here). The one thing I don't care for is the “best” label, at least for my list. Concerthopper's album review section is mostly a one-man operation on the Americana side and, being one person with two ears, I can't possibly listen to every album that comes my way, and some might have made a “best” list if I had. Instead, what you find below is a list of favorite Americana and roots albums of the year so far. Your list may differ and I look forward to your choices in the comments. Where we reviewed the album, I've linked it. Where we didn't, I've linked a Youtube video of one of my favorite album cuts.
10. Iris DeMent- Workin' on a World
A new Iris DeMent album is an infrequent thing and to be celebrated anytime there is one. On Workin' on a World, she takes on the hate and divisiveness our political system has delivered of late and faces it with a mixture of defiance (“Warriors of Love”) and healing (“Workin' on a World”). Simply put, it's DeMent at her best and, at her best, she's as good as it gets.
9. Ben Folds- What Matters Most
In his finest solo release to date, Ben Folds pens songs that are essentially short fiction, story songs that run the gamut from political dissatisfaction (“Wait There's More”) to a humorous encounter with a lady with too much stamina and some weird fetishes (“Exhausting Lover”) to a middle school crush who became a hate-filled meme sharer in adulthood (“Kristine From the 7th Grade”) with equal parts earnestness and humor.
8. Margo Price- Strays
Margo Price always delivers and Strays is her best studio album since Midwest Farmer's Daughter. With some help from Sharon Van Etten and Sierra Ferrell she delivers an album that is equal parts classic country, America, and straight ahead driving rock and roll. It's a fun album, even when Price is offering raw autobiographical material (“Been to the Mountain”).
7. Dom Flemons- Traveling Wildfire
Dom Flemons is roots music's most dedicated historian. He began (alongside Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson) his work of unearthing the almost forgotten history of black string band music with Carolina Chocolate Drops and has continued to do so with his solo records for Smithsonian Folkways. But Traveling Wildfire also shows off Flemons' love of traditional country, from the ambling waltz of “Slow Dance With You” to the Marty Robbins-esque western story song “It's Cold Inside” alongside his historical remembrances like “Nobody Wrote It Down.”
6. Joy Oladokun- Proof of Life
While Proof of Life is Joy Oladokun's third album, it's her true coming out party, an album so good that it brought her a larger audience, and a well deserved one. From the slow burn of “Pride” to the hip-hop enhanced soul of “Revolution,” there's something for everyone on this album. The breadth of influences on this album is evident from her guests, ranging from Chris Stapleton to Manchester Orchestra to Maxo Kream to Noah Kahan.
5. The War & Treaty- Lover's Game
I'll admit to being concerned when The War & Treaty signed a major label contract last year. Would the duo that so fiercely defended their place in Americana when they burst onto the scene become watered down by the mainstream? I needn't have. Lover's Game is another satisfying album of country-soul. There's a bit more emphasis on the country side this go around, but that only serves to give them the vibe of Ray Charles' forays into country music and that's not bad company to be in.
4. Parker Millsap- Wilderness Within You
Parker Millsap has never been an artist afraid to experiment with new sounds, but on Wilderness Within You, using technological gadgets not usually found in roots music while condemning the technology that separates us even when we're feet apart. On the album, Millsap dabbles in New Wave (“So Far Apart”) and Krautrock (“Half a World Away”) while never leaving his core roots sound on songs like “Greetings and Thanks” and “Front Porchin.”
3. Doolin'- Circus Boy
There's nothing that draws me like artists who embrace the strange. So when I ran across Doolin', a band billing themselves as “France's Best Celtic Supergroup,” I knew I had to give it a listen. I'm glad I did. Recorded in two sessions bookending the pandemic, the first in America and the second in France, the album finds Doolin' stretching beyond the bounds of their traditional Celtic sound into earnest folk-pop (“The Darkest Way”), Americana (“Circus Boy”), and even calypso with a cover of Harry Belafonte's “Man Smart, Woman Smarter.” Doolin' was the discovery of 2023 for me and a band I immediately went out and picked up the back catalog from.
2. Cinder Well- Cadence
While it's not the #1 album of the year so far, it's a near thing. No album bowled me over like Cadence in the first half of 2023. I was familiar with Amelia Baker's “doom folk” project from her excellent previous album No Summer, but nothing prepared me for the dark explorations of the “thin places” in our reality where magic, not always positive, happens. Songs like “Two Heads, Grey Mare” and “Gone the Holding” practically drip with the Old Ways of Baker's home on Ireland's coast.
1. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit- Weathervanes
Six albums into his Southeastern Records output I've pretty much just slotted Jason Isbell into the #1 slot unheard and I will until he proves to me that he doesn't deserve it. Weathervanes is another success, an album unafraid to tackle tough topics like racism (“Cast Iron Skillet”), school shootings (“Save the World”), and addiction (“King of Oklahoma”) without ever sounding preachy. As always, his band The 400 Unit proves that they're the next generation Heartbreakers, ably weaving instrumental greatness into Isbell's lyrics, notably on his Sadler Vaden guitar-driven tribute to Justin Townes Earle, “When We Were Close.”