LoScoring day today…
[Video]
[4.25]
Brad Shoup: And I love the details. The track’s got a head cold — congested hi-hat work and throbbing gated guitar — but when it hits the chorus the forced cheer’s pretty infectious.
[7]
Crystal Leww: LoCash manage to make every line in this song basically “I love” plus stuff they love, which is mostly small towns and the lifestyle associated with them. And yet, “I Love This Life” is a pretty great showcase for how a banjo can be used in a pop-country song, clanging along and driving it forward.
[6]
Alfred Soto: The chorus’ last go-round simulates feeling, but this songwriting duo responsible for Tim McGraw’s “Truck Yeah!” wouldn’t know an original chord progression or metaphor if it offered them an ice cold beer on Sunday.
[3]
Anthony Easton: It must be a sad feeling to go from cutting edge to retrograde without ever making bank enough to carefully sell out.
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: I’m happy for you that you love your life and all of its components, dudes, but I really don’t need to hear your laundry list recited in what sounds like a fake twang.
[3]
Micha Cavaseno: For what it’s worth, the optimism is infectious, and the weird catalog of things to reflect on is nice enough. It’s just that they didn’t bother to dress up the list any further, nor is the hook all that significant.
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: It’s weird thinking back to a decade ago, when so much country music felt like a sonic political ad hammered into one’s yard. Now, only older artists play the red-state-blue-state game, and “country” feels more like a lifestyle to slip into rather than anything else. LoCash evoke all sorts of imagery that once meant very specific things — camouflage, unpaved back roads, church — but here come off like essentials for someone’s Stagecoach starter kit. And it’s for the best, as the general aww-shucks-ness of “I Love This Life” is far sweeter than drawing lines in the sand, even if the sing-along chorus is goofy in the same way a lot of “epic” rock hooks sound now.
[5]
Leela Grace: This is country as complacency and it doesn’t sound nearly as good in the winter. It gets bleak out here: cows standing in icy mud, people at your local bar cheering for the Redskins like that name’s not crazy racist, knowing that you’re just something for a guy to drive around. My gravel road’s full of ruts from the last big storm, and all my friends moved to the city. Except it’s stupid beautiful, and I feel sad and grateful every time I leave and every time I come back. And when I’m swerving the back roads waiting for something to happen, and this song comes on, I sing along.
[4]