Dwight Yoakam “Brighter Days”

Veteran New Country artist returns with a vibrant new album.

It’s been nine years since Dwight Yoakam last graced us with an album, a long time out of the limelight which he once commanded. It’s fair to say that Yoakam was one of the brighter stars of the burgeoning new country movement back in the 1980s while retaining a foot in the grittier L.A. scene, often performing with The Blasters. He was featured and quoted on the seminal 1987 NME cassette, “Tape With No Name” and his first three albums are essential listening but he seemed to fall then into a fame trap, appearing in various movies and releasing albums with diminishing returns. There was a resurgence in 2012 when he released “3 Pears”, followed closely by “Second Heart” and then a bluegrass album in the shape of 2016’s “Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…”, three albums which helped to bring him back into the public eye, culminating in being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Honor at the 2024 Americana Music Awards. Now, aged 68, he delivers an album which is almost a full-circle return to earlier form.

“Brighter Days” was signposted when its first single,’I Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye (Bang Bang Boom Boom)’ was released. It’s a traditional-sounding, Bakersfield like country recording, which finds Yoakam duetting with Post Malone, one of those country rappers who fill the charts these days (a smart move) and which bode well for the disc. Expectations raised high then, the opening song ‘Wide Open Heart’ more than meets them as its coruscating guitar and whip-smart delivery reminds one not only of Yoakam’s early forays but also those of Jason & The Scorchers and even Tom Petty. It’s a blast of a start. There’s more raucous country rock’n’roll on the lean and mean ‘Can’t Be Wrong’ and, surprisingly, on a cover of The Carter Family’s ‘Keep On The Sunny Side’ which initially blindsides the listener with an intro which apes their harmonies before a turbocharged guitar marches in.

There’s classic Nashville pop on songs such as ‘I’ll Pay The Price’, ‘I Spell Love’ and ‘Brighter Days’ but Yoakam pulls out all the stops for the melodramatic misery of ‘Hand Me Down Heart’, a gorgeous song delivered here in an almost gospel soul carriage, driven by George Jones. Along the way Yoakam visits two other covers. ‘Bound Away’, originally by Cake, finds him putting some flesh and bones on the original and upping the tempo a notch or two. The Byrds’ ‘Time Between’ also gets an outing, an odd choice perhaps as Yoakam sticks pretty much to the original although he does take it into more bluegrass-like territory. More successful is the jangled ‘A Dream That Never Ends’ which sounds like an out-take from The Travellin’ Wilburys and he closes the album (as he began) with a bang on ‘Every Night’, a certified floor filler with its sinuous dancing beat and flirtatious lyrics.

If you haven’t bought a Dwight Yoakam album in ages, “Brighter Days” is the one to tempt you back.