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Making a quality debut album is more about giving listeners a piece of your identity than it is making any grand aesthetical statements about what you want to do in your career, and in this sense, Cory Keefe’s I’ll Keep It Country might be one of the best country records of its kind out this spring. While definitely not the product of insular poeticisms, the narrative in I’ll Keep It Country is very personal and telling of who this singer/songwriter is beneath the flash in his sound, and nowadays, his brand of honest artistic expression is too hard to come by.
URL: https://www.corykeefemusic.com/
Rather than hiding behind lyrics and metaphorical commentary that could be interpreted a million different ways, Keefe is pretty good about establishing his feelings through his harmonies as often as he does directness within his verses. He’s essentially using his words to create familiarity, an artistic bridge between himself and the classic players we both grew up listening to, and being that there’s nothing for me to compare a song like “Till Now” or “Anything” to outside of “Deeper Well” or the title track here, it’s a helpful way of understanding his identity as clearly as possible. You can sport your influences proudly when it translates something in your work, and clearly this is something he knew before ever getting into the studio to record this LP.
The most original element in I’ll Keep It Country is Keefe’s relaxed command over the harmonies, which start and end with his vocal in top-tier songs like “Damn Strait,” “I Just Want You (feat. Lorrie Morgan)” and “She Calls Me Cowboy,” but it never becomes something he leans on to fill in compositional gaps. Despite it being the sharpest weapon he has in his war chest, he’s pretty careful about overextending any part of his artistry in these tracks – after all, at this developmental stage, there’s really no need to show all of his cards at once (or overplay his hand, for that matter).
“Going Home,” “That’s Where I Want to Take Our Love (And Settle Down)” and “Where There’s a Beer, There’s a Way” feel like old fashioned hits that have been reborn for a new era of country fans who still crave a lot of the same melodic charm their parents did – with slightly modified creative accents, that is. There’s a timelessness to Keefe’s composing style that he’s exploiting wonderfully in I’ll Keep It Country, and if he can keep it up, I think it could become one the most attractive components of his artistic persona.
AIRPLAY DIRECT: https://airplaydirect.com/music/CoryKeefe-IllKeepItCountry/
It can be said that Cory Keefe isn’t the only interesting player in country music these days, but in I’ll Keep It Country, he makes it known that he’s definitely one of the most talented young rookies to come through the underground in quite some time. His sound is teeming with potential, and in tracks like “Damn Strait,” “Deeper Well” and “Brotherly Love (feat. Dustin Keefe),” he sounds like just the sort of ascending superstar this genre could really benefit from right now.
by Bethany Page
