Eli Young Band really had a lot of work to put on to produce an album as good as Life At Best. 10,000 Towns is an album that doesn't go too far off the tracks of their previous album, while modernizing their style. The question really is about whether or not Eli Young Band did a great job at improving their already successful recipe producing this latest release...
While the album has a couple of great songs, I'd say that the quality of the performances on a couple of songs is subpar to Life At Best. Drunk Last Night, Dust, What Does and Just Add Moonlight all do a great job at keeping the bar to a high level, but some other songs fall straight on their face because they totally lack emotion whatsoever from the band, particularly Mike Eli. He sings well, but you don't really feel like he's involved in the songs. Don't get me wrong, this is a great album, simply I expected more from Eli Young Band.
A lot of the songs weren't written by the band members on this album, in a proportion quite a bit higher than what we are used to. Some of the songs written by non-related artists were great, but the performance by the band itself sometimes fell short, especially when we compare to the work done on Crazy Girl and Even If It Breaks Your Heart. When the band was actually writing the songs, the performance was totally up to the expectations, like mentioned previously.
Overall, Eli Young Band stays widely relevant as far as the country-pop segment is concerned, the old recipe still works (as shown by their album charting in first position on the Country Billboard), but in the fast-evolving country industry, continuing on the exact path of past successes sometimes isn't enough. Their strategy involves mostly trying to attract people not usually acquainted with country music and get them to appreciate the country-pop segment. At this, Eli Young Band does an excellent job.
TLDR: As a Eli Young Band fan, I greatly appreciated this album, and if you weren't acquainted with them already, you'll like it as well. For people who widely appreciated their previous releases though, you might be slightly disappointed by the lack of building up on Life At Best.
8.5/10
Drunk Last Night
As the first single of the new album, I was pretty impressed by how catchy the song was. It's melodious while being quite peppy, it's an ear-worm. It's an excellent song to introduce this album as far as I'm concerned.
9/10
10,000 Towns
This song is absolutely lovely, and reminds me a lot of what the previous album sounded like. That being said, the lyrics are pretty bad in my mind, it rhymes together, but doesn't make a lot of sense... In any case, it's enjoyable.
8/10
Dust
As I'm writing that review, this is their current single (just starting to play on the radio), so I have no idea how high it will end up on the charts. The song is well-written, and for an heartbreak song, plenty catchy. It has that optimistic vibe to it that I feel a lot of people will enjoy, as I did myself. The song is well produced, it really sounds well and feels tied together.
9/10
Angel Like You
Even though the song sounds decent, I felt that it lacked emotion to it. With those lovely lyrics, I would have expected a much better performance by Mike Eli on this one. He sings it well, but totally lacks involvement in it, which is quite surprising since he co-wrote it.
7.5/10
Let's Do Something Tonight
Like Angel Like You, this song totally lacks emotion and involvement to it. It's a nice melody, the music sounds fine, but overall, it lacks that thing that gets you and keeps you going, that sticks in your head. Granted though, this is one of the numerous songs of this album that wasn't written by any member of the band. The song is also pretty repetitive.
7/10
Your Last Broken Heart
Already, this song is much more peppy than the couple of previous ones, which could be explained by the band members writing it themselves. The song is repetitive though, but the singing performance is great. After a couple of listens, it'll grow on you for sure.
8.5/10
What Does
Even though this is a pretty slow song, it's one of my favourite of the album. It's emotional, and as a listener I felt directly connected to it. It's very involving, and the singing performance is splendid. It's a well-written song, the story of two lovers who thought they had something special, but then realize that trouble can come up even in such a situation.
9/10
A Lot Like Love
This is a pretty good song, the lyrics are great (even though again none of the band members participated in writing them). The song is enjoyable, while being slightly repetitive.
7.5/10
Just Add Moonlight
The way this song sounds reminds me again of their previous album quite a lot. It's very entertaining, and does the job pretty well for a love song. I think this song is peppy and catchy enough to hit the radio at some point.
8.5/10
Revelations
This song is a lot more "rock" than the rest of the album, and it sounds good, it doesn't seem too far fetch for Eli Young Band. It's nice to see the band experimenting a bit, even though I don't believe they are going to focus their career on those kinds of songs in the future. It's lovely, but certainly not on par with what other artists such as Eric Church are pulling out of their hats.
7/10
Prayer For The Road
Eli Young Band really nails those slow songs perfectly, it really does sound great. The song shines at closing down this album, it's emotional enough and ends it on a good, heart-warming note.
8/10
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