The Fat Angel Sings

I’ve been a bit infatuated with this Nashville songwriter since I first heard him last year, and the debut full-length that he just recorded is phenomenal. It’s one of those 10-song records that’s damned near perfect, traveling through the old, smoky bars of older days and down the twisted back roads of love. These are Sam Cooke-caliber love songs, if they had more of a honky-tonk bent and were fueled by repetitive nights of hard whiskeying. The way that Anderson East has of conveying that deep-gutted hurt that can only come after an exhausting want or attraction is next level expertise. He is a spectacular talent, and releases like this one are as thrilling as they come.