Ashley McBryde and her collaborators officially welcome you to Lindeville. With its honest, specific and morally complicated portrayal of the many characters that can personify small town life, Lindeville will feel like a place that many have visited before. Praised by The New York Times as “a fluorescent carnival of pedal steel and thumping guitar that proves McBryde can be a skilled curator, as well as a performer,” Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville is available now via Warner Music Nashville.
Produced by John Osborne, Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville includes performances from McBryde, Brothers Osborne, Brandy Clark, Aaron Raitiere, Pillbox Patti, Caylee Hammack and Benjy Davis, delivering a distilled version of everything that listeners have come to appreciate from the Arkansas native: raw, honest, specific portraits of small-town America, and the many characters that you may encounter in any one of them.
Written during a weeklong exercise in a rural cabin outside Nashville, McBryde set out with a group of her favorite collaborators to work up a project they had no intention of ever recording or releasing. Those individuals included McBryde, Raitiere, Hayford, Clark, Davis and Connie Harrington, each drawing from their own upbringings to give Lindeville an every-town realism blended with familiar characters, moral ambiguity and a healthy enough dose of gallows humor to make this town feel like your town.
With swelling strings prefacing what Arkansas Democrat-Gazette calls “a ribald tale of neighbors,” opening track “Brenda Put Your Bra On” threads the needle, acquainting listeners with its first cast of characters.
“I’d like to think that when you first get to town, you think to yourself, ‘What a cute little neighborhood,’” outlines McBryde. “And then the next thing you see is dishes flying across Main Street. And you’re like, ‘Okay! Good morning, Lindeville!’And that’s when we find out that Tina’s friends are witnessing her catching Marvin cheating.
“So ‘Bonfire at Tina’s’ is about all of those women in that town going, ‘Look, we all hate each other, and we can go back to talking shit about each other, but right now, one of us is hurting, and that gives us permission to drink too much, smoke and set shit on fire,” McBryde imparts.
“I secretly hope that multiple people get together to burn the things that have been holding them back (in a super safe way),” admits McBryde. “But I hope that it becomes an anthem and an outlet, not just for women, but for anybody who’s like, ‘You know what? I’m so tired of struggling with my weight.’ And they go burn their scale. Yes. Do that!”
“An album like Lindeville,” notes Stereogum, “is a writing exercise, and you can look at a work like that from an academic lens if you want. But when those writing exercises really work, they can move you…A lot of people put a lot of work into this record, and they made something that resonates on a deep, emotional level. Give it up for them.”
“This might turn out to be one of the most unique, interesting, and important albums released by a major country music label in years,” sums up Saving Country Music.
