ALBUM REVIEW: On ‘Wandering Star,’ Flatland Cavalry Creates a Galaxy of Layered Songs
Maeri Ferguson
Posted On October 25, 2023
They just don’t make them like Flatland Cavalry anymore. A six-piece band out of Texas and Nashville, they’ve consistently produced a kind of authentic throwback 1990s country sound, anchored by Cleto Cordero’s deeply felt vocals and an old-school sensibility that strips away all artifice in favor of something undeniably pure and true. Their latest, Wandering Star, brings together a collection of songs that feel timeless right out of the gate, warm and twangy with full-bodied arrangements of keys, guitars, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo. Even the scenes conjured — neon-lit dance halls and double shifts on the farm, steel-toed boots, a train whistling in the distance, hot coffee in the morning — feel like a classic slice of Americana.
But whether in hoedown form or waltz, Flatland Cavalry bakes nuanced emotions and conflict into these seemingly simple images, proving not everything is as it seems on the surface and that underneath it all lies a beating heart ready to break. “New American Dream” revels in the endless barrage of contradictions that come with trying to be a person in the world, a dark but cheeky takedown of technology and the disconnection it has wrought. With its raucous guitar lick, album opener “The Provider” is an almost cinematic homage to working-class America, and “A Thousand Miles an Hour” turns recognizable country tropes into a deeper search for meaning and connection “in the flames of a rusted Weber grill.”
The band can still write a damn solid love song, too, of which there are plenty on Wandering Star. They skillfully manage to deliver the sentiment without the sap in the prettiest, tightly woven tunes like “Mornings With You,” a sweet realization that life is a whole lot richer when you enjoy it slowly with the ones you love. Cordero’s wife, singer-songwriter Kaitlin Butts, lends her angelic harmonies to really make it shimmer. And standout “Oughta See You (The Way I Do)” is an anthem for self-love, a reassuring gesture of acceptance that offers the essential reminder that often you’re the only one who can see your flaws.
Flatland Cavalry’s Wandering Star is out Oct. 27 via Interscope Records.
