Rob’s Album Of The Week: Sturgill Simpson’s Sound & Fury

It’s no secret that Sturgill Simpson isn’t your typical run-of-the-mill country musician. These days, country might not the appropriate classification for his music. He first got noticed from his songs about aliens, drugs and the devil in his second album Metamodern Sounds in Country Music that came out in 2014. Then he followed that up with the psychedelic soul influenced A Sailor’s Guide To Earth in 2016 which won a Grammy for Best Country Album the following year. His latest release Sound & Fury, which came out on September 27 via Elektra Records, takes electronic elements and incorporates them into a rhythmic rock & roll sound.

What separates this record from everything else is that it’s also a soundtrack to an accompanying anime film on Netflix. With that, the tones exhibited especially take on the art form in an audial manner. It’s ’70s classic rock merging with the cyberpunk aesthetic to create pure musical power. Another thing that’s pretty cool while listening is the shift between songs that sound like the turning of a dial on an AM/FM radio. A unique authenticity makes the experience a bit different than just pressing play and turning up the volume.

To understand why Simpson’s career is so expansive, you have to look at where he came from. Country music is a part of the music industry that’s become more of a…