Almost thirty years into his solo career, Easton’s 14th studio album finds him burning as bright as ever.
This Chinese year, 2026, brings forth the year of the Fire Horse, for the first time in sixty years. The fire element is believed to greatly accelerate the horse’s typical traits, leading to extreme energy, passion and change, including impulsivity. Akron, Ohio-raised Tim Easton was born under the sign of the Fire Horse, and the cover art to this, his 14th studio album, depicts a striking red horse painted by his sister, visual artist Susan Easton Burns, all of which helps to explain why fiREHORSE is the title to his most recent release.
Produced by up-and-coming Nashville producer Kevin Nolan and featuring the rhythm section from Lainey Wilson’s band, with Matt Nolan on drums and Tommy Scifres on bass, fiREHORSE finds Easton drawing from his experience of decades on the road and his lifelong commitment to travel. Each of the ten songs here emphasises his songcraft, individual vignettes, centred around perseverance and devotion, all laced with the lived-in, detailed narrative of a wandering spirit.
From the opening song River, where a swamped vibe from an electric guitar rumbles against the assurance of Matt Nolan’s bass drum, immediately drawing comparison to the late great Tony Joe White, as Easton’s weather-worn vocals recount his near-fatal rafting accident with the sagacious wisdom of a survivor against the odds, right through to the closing number, Hwy. 62 Love Song, where he declares his longtime affection for California’s Joshua Tree desert, Easton never misses a beat. Album highlights abound, with a loose genre structure that never loses its rootsy undertone, while Kevin Nolan’s arrangements are careful not to erase Easton’s battled-scarred rough edges. So whether it be on the uplifting Don’t Let Your Mind Go Dark, the roadside memories recounted on Cottonfields or the cautionary tale of Another Good Man Down, replete with some wonderful slide guitar, the album keeps on delivering a vivid and deeply personal chapter in his ongoing journey with songs of survival, and resilience imbued with a burning desire to keep discovering what lies around the next bend in the road.
Personal favourites, of which there are many, include Hallelujah, an indictment of cartel violence, where Easton pairs his own personal history with the 1989 fall of disgraced Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, which is both a heady broth and a perfect indication of his narrative range, along with Never Punch The Clock Again, a song that celebrates the roaming life with an infectious groove straight out of Lowell George’s repertoire.
Easton’s musical career has seen him go from spending years working as a European street musician, to being mentored by such legends as Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams, while his early album output saw him work with members of Wilco, Mike Campbell, Tift Merritt and Jim Keltner, often to much critical acclaim, but limited sales. However, his unshakable pull for the songwriting life has continuously helped to hone his craft and build his stock so that fiREHORSE, his 14th studio album, may well be his finest offering to date.
