Album Review – Arlo McKinley’s “This Mess We’re In”

One runs the risk of being labeled a musical misfit here in 2022 if you purposely ignore the release of new music from one of the premier songwriters of our time, of which Arlo McKinley most certainly qualifies. After all, his last album, 2020’s Die Midwestern won Saving Country Music Album of the Year. But this late bloomer had forty years to write that album, and the praise of John Prine who signed him to his Oh Boy Records label to live up to. It’s often the next release after a big one when you get the sense if a songwriter has the stuff to ultimately sustain.

Arlo McKinley and This Mess Were In most certainly have the stuff to sustain.

Unflinchingly offering brutal dispatches from the most downtrodden and desperate moments of life, Arlo McKinley delivers one body blow after another in songs that are brutally articulate about the level of depression and despondency suffered, yet are poetic in how they’re expressed as to foster empathy, camaraderie, and hopefully, understanding. The underlying philosophy is that being honest and unburdening about his own issues with loss and pain will help construct an avenue for healing in those suffering a similar fate. It’s the “sad songs make me happy” mantra, taken to its ultimate apex.

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