A Sailor's Guide to Earth

Simpson’s searching, psychedelic <i>Metamodern Sounds in Country Music</i> put so much "alt" into its alt-country that it occasionally left the genre’s orbit completely. His third album—a welcome letter to his infant son—is even more kaleidoscopic, sliding between passionate Southern rock, hazy AM radio ballads and Stax-style soul workouts with the ease of colored wax blobs floating around a lava lamp. And if “Brace for Impact (Live a Little)” or the starry-eyed “Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)” don’t convince you of the breadth of Simpson’s vision, listen to him turn Nirvana’s “In Bloom” into something beautiful enough to lull his baby to sleep.