George Strait rode off into the sunset in 2014, retreating from the road via an uncharacteristically well-hyped two-year farewell.
Strait may have hung up his touring boots but he didn't retire, so his re-emergence in the fall of 2015 with the sudden release of a brand-new studio album called
Cold Beer Conversation accompanied by a Las Vegas residency shouldn't be a surprise: he never said he'd stop singing. Appropriately,
Cold Beer Conversation feels like a continuation, another reliable record arriving right on schedule, just two years after the last. Behind the scenes, there were some shifts, with
Tony Brown -- who has been part of the
Strait team since 1992 -- bestowing the producer seat to
Chuck Ainlay, a relative newcomer who produced hits for
Miranda Lambert and her band
Pistol Annies, along with engineering everybody from
Emmylou Harris to
Taylor Swift.
Ainlay provides just the slightest hint of contemporization, opening up the mix a bit and adding splashes of handsomely burnished color, subtle -- almost imperceptible -- changes that nevertheless freshen
Strait's proudly traditional country without pushing it into a cacophonous modern mainstream. Instead,
Ainlay's work emphasizes continuity as much as the selection of songs from
George's stable of writers: originals composed by the singer and his son Bubba, a co-write by
Jamey Johnson and
Tom Shapiro ("Something Going Down"), a selection by
Brandy Clark and
Shane McAnally ("Take Me to Texas"), credits by
Keith Gattis,
Al Anderson, and
Buddy Cannon, among others. While the vibe is quite relaxed -- not for nothing is the album named after an alluringly lazy throwback to
Strait's early-'80s work -- it nevertheless allows room for plenty of different styles, ranging from the snapping twang of "Goin' Goin' Gone" and Texas dancehall shuffle "Cheaper Than a Shrink" to the surprisingly raucous "Rock Paper Scissors" and the Western Swing of "It Takes All Kinds." Still, what holds the album together is
Strait's mellow command. He's a singer that can make quiet seem compelling, and there are plenty of instances in this tight, wholly satisfying record where he demands attention by not asking for it. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine