Luke Combs released his second studio album What You See Is What You Get on Nov. 8.
The album features pre-released singles “Beer Never Broke My Heart” and “Even Though I’m Leaving.”
The person I was five years ago would rather have not listened to music at all than to have had to listen to country music, yet here I am now writing an album review over one of the greatest, in my opinion, country singers of 2019.
Luke Combs is quite possibly the singer responsible for me expanding my music taste to include country again. His song “When It Rains It Pours” off of his debut album This One’s For You, released in 2017, is the song to which I can attribute my change in taste. I would find myself changing the radio station to one that predominantly played country music in hopes of hearing it. I even stopped putting in my headphones when I would ride with my dad in his truck.
Since the first time I heard “When It Rains It Pours,” I have loved every song Combs has written, so I was rather excited when he released What You See Is What You Get. As with the last album he released, there was not a single track on this album that disappointed me.
The opening track “Beer Never Broke My Heart” is one of my favorites off of this album. It sounds like a rock song in the beginning, but there’s a bit of a country twang with the guitars. Then he starts singing, and one can’t help but get fired up. Combs begins naming off all these things that just about everyone experiences at some point in their lives. By the end of the song I feel just as wronged by his ex girlfriend as he does, and that the only thing I can count on is beer, even though I don’t like it. Funny how music works.
Following “Beer Never Broke My Heart” is the song “Refrigerator Door.” I really like this song because it reminds me of childhood and my refrigerator door at home. He sings about all the things he has stuck on his refrigerator door, from pictures to save the date’s to grocery lists; mine looks a lot like that. It’s covered in pictures of my siblings and I from years ago, artwork of ours that our mother kept, magnets from all over the country, and random papers.
In the song he says that it might not look like much to others, but it holds so many memories. The main reason I love this song is that he sings about something so simple as the refrigerator door, yet so many can relate to it.
After that is the song “Even Though I’m Leaving.” This is another favorite of mine; it makes me a bit emotional. I have taken comfort in what Combs expresses in the song, such as the line “even though I’m leaving I ain’t going nowhere.” I am going through a difficult period in my life right now, much like what is described near the end of the song, and I find this song very comforting.
Another favorite off of this album is “Every Little Bit Helps.” I really like this for the lyrics, like all the others mentioned, but I also really like the sound of his voice in this one. I love his voice in all of his other songs, but it’s different in this one. It almost sounds a bit raw, as in it isn’t as strong and forward as in some of his other songs, and I really like that in this song specifically.
Finally, the last song I really enjoyed on What You See Is What You Get was “Better Together.” There are very few instrumentals, so Combs’s voice is very prominent. This is also one of the slower songs on the album. Lyrically the song is great, and Combs sings it really well. You can hear the emotion in his voice, and I love when singers show emotion in what they are singing.
This album is the perfect blend of country rock songs and ballads. The different styles of songs showcase Combs’s range of vocal styles.
I highly recommend this album to anyone that loves country music, or is on the fence about it. Who knows, maybe he will change your opinion of country music too.
Photo Credit / Luke Combs
