The Nashville-based songwriter Cole Greenwalt‘s new single, “Alcoholic,” is a backroom confession turned barroom anthem, a grizzled-voiced, emotionally bruising slab of honest-to-goodness songwriting that captures the sober clarity that arrives after a week lost inside the bottle. Rooted deep in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, and firmly planted in the musky trenches of Nashville songwriting idolatry, Greenwalt’s offering is a notable departure from the grift, a gritty, folk-acoustic opiate for the masses that is profoundly personal and fearlessly universal.
Penned in a haze in the aftermath of an all-night bender in Midtown Nashville, “Alcoholic” tiptoes the line, and Greenwalt leans into the moment of realization with a kick of southern grit and a melody that is near impossible not to scream into the night. It’s that duality that gives the chorus a feeling of release. It’s the sort of song you crank up while driving your truck with the rattle of your mistakes echoing in your ears.
Recorded at Vibe King Studio with Andrew King (who also produced Greenwalt’s previous single, “More Like 32”), “Alcoholic” is slick without losing the rusty boot dust charm of the singer’s last offering. King’s band gives the acoustic backbone room to breathe without leaving it too bare while adding just enough edge to acknowledge Cole’s outlaw country influences. Think Bryan Martin’s blue-collar grind meets the heart-on-sleeve confession of Zach Bryan with a dash of Koe Wetzel’s reckless honesty.
“Alcoholic” is Cole Greenwalt’s accounting, more or less, of the present. It’s loneliness without the drama, heartbreak without the sentimentality. And maybe that is what makes it so goddamn motherfucking effective. There’s no glamorizing his depictions of drinking, no cowboy posturing. Just a guy who’s wised up enough to know he’s teetering on the brink of the someone he doesn’t want to be and can find the words to sing about it. In a genre that tends to romanticize the bottle itself, Greenwalt inverts the lens. “Alcoholic” is a picture of the moment just before the tipping point. Oh, so raw, so loud, and achingly honest, this is Cole Greenwalt stripped bare, maybe at his best yet.
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