Justin Townes Earle opens the fourth song on his second album by proclaiming, “I am my father’s son,” and certainly his parentage (he’s the son of alt-country icon Steve Earle) has earned him plenty of attention. But Earle continues to define his own path on Midnight at the Movies, establishing himself as an old-fashioned singer-songwriter with more in common with his middle-namesake, Townes Van Zandt, than with his eclectic, genre-bending father.
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Not that Midnight is monochromatic, but its songs are generally variations on old-fashioned styles: “What I Mean to You” brings in a bit of Western swing; “They Killed John Henry” sounds like a long-lost 1930s folk song; and “Halfway to Jackson” is a greasy blues number. Nestled among them is a cover of The Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” that turns the alt-rock classic into a ramshackle country-folk tune.
“I’ve never known when to shut up” is the next line in that fourth song, “My Mother’s Eyes,” but Earle isn’t a political firebrand like his dad; rather, his lyrics paint intimate character portraits and tell engaging stories. “Eyes” is a compact and affecting account of a fractured upbringing, while the title track is a melancholy tale of loneliness. Songs like “Someday I’ll Be Forgiven for This” and the closing “Here We Go Again” present a bit of a more modern, Ryan Adams-ish vibe, and Earle seems comfortable in both the past and the present. He may be his father’s son, but he stands just fine on his own.
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