Review: Sinners Like Me by Eric Church
Eric Church - Sinners Like Me
(2006, Capitol Nashville)
Eric Church is one of the great anomalies of modern music. For nearly 20 years he’s been topping country charts, touring stadiums, and solidifying his role as a forefather of bro-country. But none of this stuff is impressive. To me, there’s nothing cool about double platinum singles, Grammy noms, or sold out arenas. What is impressive to me is the deceptively bizarre world of Church’s music. And the biggest challenge for me is uniting his stardom and insane production tendencies. Why does no one else see how off the chain and genius the man is. Alongside his longtime producer Jay Joyce, Church has been using studio tricks to push the honky tonk envelope to the point of breaking while simultaneously subverting all the genre’s tropes. And nothing about any of it is ironic or tongue-in-cheek. He sings of girls, boots, trucks, beer and football with every bit as much implied earnestness as Luke, Jason, FGL and all the rest. If we’re to believe Wikipedia, he’s co-penned nearly all of his discography and has got more than a few absolute bangers to his name. And for most pop country stars this would be enough. Being an everyman with a guitar and some relatable songs is as tall as you need to be to ride the country Billboard, but for whatever reason, it’s not enough for Church.
Eric Church unveiled his debut album Sinners Like Me to the world on July 18th, 2006. The mid-aughts were a time where throwing shit at the wall was encouraged. To boot, pop country stipulations were newer and not quite as set in stone as today. Much of Sinners is pretty standard, especially compared to the kind of stuff Church would come up with 2 or 3 albums down the road. But he lets his freak flag fly in some moments. We open the record up not with a thesis statement but with a disclaimer. Redneck patriot incoming. Watchout I like a little rock n roll in my twang, warns the subtle pedal steel gust in the intro. I love George Jones and hate the government. These proclamations are evident before Eric even sings a word. First verse of album opener “Before She does:” we cover our hillbilly bases; gas prices bad, war on terror good, bible good etc. And then the talkbox comes in, singing not only the Bon Jovi-esque ‘wah wahs’ but also singing along to the lyrics, seconding Church’s assertions of belief. Eric continues his song with no acknowledgement of the robot voice singing harmonies with him. The distorted guitar plonks out a morse code-like 16th note phrase as Church ends the verse, singing “I believe that Jesus is coming back before she does.” It poses a strange scenario I think. Without this strange sort of Daft Punk sounding element, it would be a pretty straightforward idea: ‘I got dumped and she ain’t coming back” but the talkbox seems to posit a cyborg oriented dystopian scenario. Perhaps a Matrix: Reloaded situation is what would be needed to facilitate her coming back.
Much of this is all a stretch. I don’t know if I think there is too much conspiracy or suggestions of a dystopian scenario in Eric Church’s work. The titular track 2 is pretty straight ahead. Something of a power ballad, Church puts this track up front as if he needs to prove his songwriting chops. He croons “You come from a long line of sinners like me” along to a melody that is about 4 times as pretty as it needs to be.
Up next is “How Bout You,” which similarly is not terribly cutting edge but isn’t quite as strong of a statement as “Sinners.” Church proudly proclaims that he doesn’t need baggy clothes to be cool, a weighted opinion that he will actually double down on 5 years later with his single “Homeboy.” A bit of a cringey take by today’s standards and certainly in poor taste. I won’t defend Church on this take but I will say I don’t think these takes were meant to be totally race-oriented and I think he was really making an effort to go hard with the old school traditional values stuff on these tracks. He’s singing about what he thinks is cool, and isn’t giving too much thought to what others may think is cool, and what structures are in place to inform who thinks what is cool in the first place.
“These Boots” is an emotional track about a pair of boots that become a scapegoat for choices that he’s made. It can be hard to admit mistakes and sometimes we all look to lay blame on something external.
“What I Almost Was” presents the opposite perspective as its predecessor. He doesn’t lament his missed pro-athelte opportunity or his formative break-up. Everything that’s happened to him happened for a reason and he’s glad that his biggest L’s led him to buying an old guitar and becoming a singer.
Sinners’ A-Side closes with “The Hard Way,” another contemplative tune about lessons learned. Heartbreak and mistakes are a challenge to reckon with but learning stuff the hard way is inevitable.
As the record flips, it begins to come into its own a little more and the country rocker that Church would become stands a little taller. “Guys Like Me” is characterised by a solid riff and a cracking snare that conveys dignity and confidence. “It’s hard to believe that girls like you love guys like me,” sings Church. Perhaps his incredulity is genuine but what is certain is that he feels a certain pride for having ‘skol rings’ on his best jeans. After the guitar solo there is a bridge where the entire band hits only the backbeat all together. The section ends with a couple rhythmically ambiguous hits that I just can’t seem to count. Sounds weird as hell to me but maybe my white ass just got no rhythm.
Lightning is a pretty little song I haven’t totally listened to the lyrics all the way through and don’t really know what it’s about. It has a great pedal steel line played either by Russ, Dan or Bruce; the three steel players credited on the album.
“Can’t Take It With You” has a really great pre-chorus and an anthem of a hook. A breakup song that is totally relatable. Reminds me a lot of the time that Nicola broke up with me. Taking certain things that I wanted and leaving behind so many memories. So heartbroken.
“Pledge Allegiance To The Hag” - where do I even begin. One of the craziest songs I’ve ever heard in my life. I didn’t know music could do stuff like this. Here are some bullets of my observations about this tune.
The verse is in 7/4. The phrasing seems to be playing on the classic 4-2-4-4 country groove (think Steve Earle “Guitar Town”) but they’ve added another beat here.
It’s about loving Merle Haggard… the entire song is. Verse 1 describes a cozy little dive bar where PBR is the cheap beer and a regular, Jack, buys a Merle Tune on the jukebox periodically. The craziest part though, is that Church purports that Jack does this exact thing every hour, on the hour. Straight out of Twin Peaks.
Incredibly powerful post chorus hits and riff.
There’s a mandolin solo that you won’t notice until the 3rd or 4th listen because it is immediately followed by a short verse sung by The Hag. Yeah. Merle Haggard sings on the Eric Church song about loving Merle Haggard. The final time through the chorus features gang vocals from who I like to think is the band. They do the riff 4 or 5 times at the end. This song rocks so hard it’s as if they were reluctant to let it end. It has everything.
You can hear the digital chops of the track on the outro. It’s not convincing and it’s not intended to be. Super out there.
As the last chord fades away a little banjo is plucking along to the chords for a few seconds, this is the first time we hear banjo in the song.
This song is what Bon Iver was trying to do.
“Two Pink Lines” banger of a track about a pregnancy scare. Sort of reminiscent of Church’s subsequent smash hit “Drink In My Hand.” The shit he can do with a melody is astonishing. So much more interesting and intricate than so many of his contemporaries. In this song, iut turns out she’s not pregnant. Score!
The final track is a groovy little lazy bluegrassy jam called “Livin’ Part of Life.” Super cute arrangement with another killer chorus. Sort of has the same message and vibes as that Bruno Mars lazy song. Perfect ending to the album, it nurses the hangover that the Sinners Like Me party has left us with.
I suppose at the end of the day there’s honestly nothing that is terribly avant garde about this record, or any of Church’s work but to me it just has so much flavor. These guys go so hard with every little detail in the studio and even if they didn’t do any of the crazy vocal effects and drum filters and in-the-box cut-ups, this would be a solid country-rock album. The rest is just the seasoning. They want to make it as swaggy as can be.
