- Record Label: Warner Bros.
- Release Date: Jun 16, 2017
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Jun 14, 2017More than a reclamation, Outlaw suggests the miles traveled imbue a more fluid application of his roots attack and tattered romanticism.
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MagnetJul 18, 2017Earle sounds invigorated and relaxed, and these are some of his best songs in years. [No. 144, p.58]
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Jun 23, 2017This is more the work of a road-hardened posse, as opposed to the more introspective troubadour of more recent times, the frontman’s now spitting out odes to blue collar pride (The Firebreak Line, If Mama Coulda Seen Me).
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Jun 19, 2017Earle pays homage to the outlaws with a dozen fine originals.
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Jun 16, 2017So You Wannabe an Outlaw is something plenty of Steve Earle fans have been wanting for years, a no-excuses country album that updates his breakthrough work, and it's an effort that should please his core audience while also sounding like an album Earle made entirely on his own terms.
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UncutJun 14, 2017[His] best collection in more than a decade. ... These songs present an entirely unromaticised, often harrowing portrait of the outlaw genre. [Jul 2017, p.28]
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Jun 14, 2017Albums like this one continue to burnish a musical legacy that is every bit as imposing as the ones to which Earle pays homage in these songs.
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Jun 22, 2017The album’s second half slows down a bit, but it maintains the focus on songcraft and mood.
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Jun 23, 2017Nothing here breaks the four-minute mark making for a tight 12 tracks clocking in at just under 40 minutes. In this, So You Want to Be an Outlaw is a true album, each track flowing one to the next, aided by the overarching thematic outlaw country imagery recently resuscitated by the likes of Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson.
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Jun 14, 2017You can call it a return to his roots if you like, but really, So You Wanna Be an Outlaw is just a very good Steve Earle album--one that engages his past without ever sounding stuck in a rut.
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Jun 14, 2017The gravel-voiced 62-year-old coasts along on foot-stomping jukebox cliché at times, but his howling murder ballad Fixin’ To Die burns with an agreeably ragged fury, while plaintive finger-picking story songs such as News From Colorado are welcome reminders that he can sometimes out-Springsteen The Boss himself in the heart-stirring Americana stakes.