Neil Spencer 

Eric Church: Mr Misunderstood review – driving rock with added swagger

Country star Church continues to mix blue-collar homage with tinges of soul
  
  

Eric Church performs during the Imagine: John Lennon 75th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden.
Eric Church performs during the Imagine: John Lennon 75th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden. Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Blackbird

Over four albums, Church has become one of country music’s biggest stars, mixing driving rock with songs that hymn blue-collar heroes, not so differently from Bruce Springsteen, who was namechecked on an early single. Mr Misunderstood maintains the formula with Church’s customary swagger and twanging vocals. The title track promises a teenage misfit that he’ll become a “guitar hero with lightning hands”, Knives of New Orleans takes the part of a criminal on the run, and Record Year features a stranded lover nursing heartache to “a three-foot stack of vinyl”. There’s a soul-tinged duet with blues singer Susan Tedeschi and Three Year Old, a tribute to his son, that’s heartfelt, if cloying.

Watch video for Mr Misunderstood by Eric Church
 

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