SOUTHSIDE

If it seems like it took Sam Hunt a long time to deliver his second album, because it did. It took nearly six years, to be precise, with Southside arriving in April of 2020, a very long time after the release of Montevallo in 2014. Back then, Montevallo was rushed into stores because "Leave the Night On" became a sensation online and on air, helping to usher in a new era of country-pop where singer after singer attempted to emulate Hunt's blend of sensual modern-R&B, pop melodies and country signifiers. Hunt was hardly quiet during this half-decade. He wound up shattering Billboard Hot Country Songs records in 2017 with "Body Like a Back Road," a sexy, laid-back number that wound up spending a staggering 34 weeks at the top of the charts. Most artists would hurry out an album to capitalize on such success but Hunt didn't, perhaps because "Downtown's Dead" -- the 2018 sequel to "Body Like a Back Road" -- wound up being a comparative stiff, not even cracking the Top Ten. "Kinfolks" righted his course in 2019, reaching number one on Billboard's Country Airplay, and helping to set up the release of Southside in 2020.
All those pre-release songs -- which also includes 2017's "Drinkin' Too Much," as well as "Sinning with You" and "Hard to Forget," which were issued in 2020 prior to the album -- do give Southside the slightest air of being old news, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hold together as an album. It coheres because Hunt remains ensconced in his wheelhouse, mining the sleek country-R&B groove he minted on Montevallo and deepened with "Body Like a Back Road." Whenever he makes a slight departure from this sound -- as he does with the opening "2016," a straight-ahead country weeper that contains not a whisper of electronics -- he winds up underscoring how seamless his fusion of soul and country usually is, but he isn't infallible. His speak-singing on "That Ain't Beautiful" and "Drinkin' Too Much" pulls him toward a good ol' boy persona that doesn't jibe with his easy touch, while "Hard to Forget" stumbles upon its incongruous sample of Webb Pierce's honky tonk standard "There Stands a Glass," with Pierce's piercing nasal twang commanding attention in a way Hunt's soft, unassuming voice never does. He's at his best when he slides into his surroundings, riding the cool grooves without breaking a sweat, singing love songs like they're party tunes and vice-versa. And that's what most of Southside is: mellow, multi-purpose country-pop designed to soundtrack good times at home, on the road, at the office, or at a bar. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine