With acts like Florida Georgia Line and Luke Brian frequently blending pop-driven hooks with deep country roots, the genre has experienced a type of mainstream rejuvenation through bro-country. These artists’ less meaningful songs provide celebratory entertainment worthy of the radio.
The efforts of these artists to maintain relevancy has been weakened through the constant bludgeoning of the subgenre as new artists are unveiled and churned out. And where artists like Chris Stapleton still infiltrate the charts with classic sounds, newcomers looking more and more like fraternity brothers have been unable to capture the earlier hype of the bro-country forefathers.
Queue Levi Hummon.
As a Nashville native and son of the Grammy Award winning songwriter Marcus Hummon, one would expect Hummon’s sound to be uniquely his own. However, Hummon’s debut EP is less than original. Like the oversaturation of the subgenre itself, Hummon’s self-titled release is a tirelessly upbeat, yet shallow endeavor. Too young for the longing to feel real and too emblematic of someone raised in privilege searching for something meaningful to talk about, Hummon is representative of an artist who has never experienced the trials and tribulation of life in the music industry.
The record’s first track, titled “Life’s For Livin’,” provides audiences with the perfect example of this naivety. Upbeat but without any real differentiation between it and 90 others that came before it, “Life’s For Livin’” is a love song that never really breaks the surface of placidity. It flows more similar to a pond than a river and never engages with its audience, rather it hopes listeners will be dazedly complacent.
Even on tracks like “Chain Reaction” and “Guts And Glory,” which showcase deeper instrumentals and more intensity, the young singer seems to always dial back without ever accomplishing enough to stand out. “Chain Reaction” continues this pattern of youthful love, while “Gut And Glory” plays into a type of patriotic nature necessary to fitting into the subgenre, but does so offensively. Opening with lyrics about being Rosa Parks on a Montgomery bus, Hummon asserts himself into a group of Americans who have actually faced marginalization and difficulties.
Hummon’s self-titled debut isn’t particularly bad in its composition, rather it’s simply unnecessary. With so many options already permeating iTunes and streaming services alike, Hummon’s EP comes across as monotonous. Even without recognizing his likely one dimensional views of women in country songs, despite touring with the barrier, breaking Maddie & Tae of “Girl In A Country Song” fame, Hummon’s EP feels far too retroactive. As if the release belonged in a space five to 10 years in the past, Hummon is the type of record that could have been on the cutting edge of a new genre rather than its drowning conclusion.
Rating: 2 out of 5
