REVIEW: Chris Chitsey — Every Small Town (SINGLE/VIDEO)
Hardcore country fans have been supporting the genre and its indie end like never before in 2024, and as periods of great strife tend to teach us, few mediums are as medicinal as music is in times like these. In his new single “Every Small Town,” country artist Chris Chitsey is steering clear of the familiarly tired dirges and in favor of exploring an ironic optimism that is as sonically poetic as it is linguistically alluring.
URL: https://www.chrischitseymusic.com/
This is country music for an audience that has learned to celebrate the past as much as they do the future, and in my view, it couldn’t be arriving at a better moment for listeners than the present.
Chitsey always has a way of taking a personal approach to his lyricism, but it’s obvious even at a distance that his heart is invested in the subject matter of “Every Small Town.” From the moment we get started to the second, everything disappears into silence once more, his presence in the mix is the most charming element for us to behold, and not only because of the way he’s commanding the harmony here. There’s an easygoing likeability to his tone that makes this so much more mainstream than it already would have been but in the best way possible.
I like the balance between the strings and the vocal in this mix, and although it’s a little more on the nose than what some of Chitsey’s more surreal alternative contemporaries have been recording lately, I’ve never got the impression from his music that he’s particularly interested in fitting in with the popular kids. His are unique harmonies and beats that cross a couple of genre lines when they serve the narrative well, and in this regard, “Every Small Town” is in line with everything this artist has already released in the last couple of years.
This beat has a little extra oomph that some could make the case for being rather indulgent for the composition as a whole, but I think the dash of excess works wonders for the cosmetic profile of the song in general. One of the biggest reasons to get into this single is its hook, and without the slight push from the drums, as we get into the chorus, it probably wouldn’t have the aching oomph it enjoys here. Add in the harmony and you’ve got a perfect pairing, which doesn’t necessarily make “Every Small Town” multidimensional, but it does make it more a product of a dyad than the competition tends to be.
He has yet to receive the amount of press that I feel he’s been due, but I think the narrative surrounding the career of one Chris Chitsey has a good chance of changing for the better after “Every Small Town” finds an audience on the dial over the next few months. This is a superbly well-rounded sound that doesn’t ask a lot out of listeners in exchange for a pastoral charisma I haven’t been able to get out of the country music bigwigs lately, and that alone makes it a must-listen for fans like myself.
Colin Jordan
