Loaded with all of the options required to stimulate disciples of the old-fashioned Nashville sound – lumbering guitars, a scorching lead vocal, and a swaying groove as strong as they arrive – Drew Cooper delivers a smashing new nation tune in “Better of Me” that you simply received’t need to miss. “Better of Me” begins up with a roar, firing off a heavy riff that skulks about within the background as Cooper does battle with an enormous beat for the lion’s share of our affection. His vocal tone is classic, however his lyricism isn’t archaic in any respect.

Currently, it’s felt as if the nation music neighborhood is extra fractured than ever earlier than, with various actions popping up within the underground and the institution itself beginning to fray, however I don’t get an overtly political bend to this tune in any respect. Drew Cooper isn’t making an attempt to claim himself as being part of one scene over one other right here, nor does he seem to have any curiosity in watering-down or recycling the rhythm and rhyme of his stylistic forerunners. This singer/songwriter has his personal tales to inform, and this new take a look at his artistry signifies as a lot with out overstressing parts that we’ve been listening to in every single place amongst his friends and rivals within the American underground.  

Cooper’s vocal is the primary cohesive component in “Better of Me,” however not due to a weakened instrumental spine in any respect. By using his voice not solely as a way of speaking the lyrical narrative right here however as sonic reinforcement of the melodic temper within the music. The strings simmer beneath the beat of the drums as if they had been bottling up pressure to be launched post-chorus, however they by no means discover the identical catharsis that the opposite elements within the tune do. In additional methods than one, “Better of Me” is straight nation in an period that has produced nearly all the things however, and moderately than sounding like a super-oddity, it as an alternative looks like a refreshing masterclass on the style’s not-so-distant roots. I like the meticulousness of the association, and Cooper’s execution on the whole, and had I not been knowledgeable in another way, I might have thought he was a veteran of the studio expertise.   I came upon about Drew Cooper only in the near past with the discharge of this single, but when this can be a good pattern of who he’s as an artist, I’m going to be following his output carefully within the subsequent few years.

There’s greater than sufficient in “Better of Me” to recommend that he may increase even additional with acoustic materials if given the suitable context to report it in, however whether or not he goes stripped-down or electrical for his subsequent studio session, I’m planning on listening simply the identical. We’re residing in one of the vital unpredictable chapters within the historical past of American nation music, however with artists like Drew Cooper to maintain the old-school methods going robust within the underground, my intestine tells me that longtime followers of the style don’t have something to be anxious about. His is a novel type, however one which has simply sufficient familiarity with true-blue nation followers to resonate in all the suitable methods this season.  

Mindy McCall