By comparability, the singles from I’m the Downside really feel brittle, subdued, and bitter. The lonesome guitar of the title observe sounds fairly, however the story Wallen tells takes the “I do know you’re, however what am I?” conceit of final 12 months’s Submit Malone collab “I Had Some Assist” to even saltier terrain. “I suppose I’m the issue/And also you’re Miss By no means-Do-No-Flawed,” he sings wryly, revealing the title to be one other of his good aleck-y puns that feints at accountability like his final title observe. (What first seemed to be a cliché about progress was a message to an ex who’d demanded he get sober: “I hate to inform you, woman, however I’m solely quitting one factor at a time.”) Then again, there’s “Lies Lies Lies” and “Simply in Case”: a whitewashed reboot of the idea of Willie Nelson’s “I By no means Cared for You,” and a mid-tempo breakup ballad that borrows “Final Night time”’s looping rhythms, minus the pop attraction. Collectively, they current a picture of a person in a downward spiral, quieting his internal monologue by ingesting himself to sleep. The courtroom sketch cowl portrait doesn’t appear incidental.
Hearken to sufficient Wallen songs and also you’ll begin to inform the distinction between those on which he’s listed among the many writing credit and those dealt with by his trusted steady of co-writers (Charlie Good-looking, Michael Hardy, Ernest Keith Smith, Ashley Gorley, Blake Pendergrass, and so forth). The latter are inclined to cram their narratives chock-full with rustic element: The drowsy “Revelation” goals for poetry, however looks like overload in its wordy depiction of a drunk motel dawn. Wallen has a writing credit score on its companion, “Genesis,” a little bit of Dire Straits-esque heartland rock that meets the identical themes of dependancy and temptation head-on: “Swear it’s there in my blood/I used to be born to be misplaced,” he yowls, beating the unique sin allegory to loss of life, however winningly. By this music, and the extra compelling of the three dozen others, runs a streak of fatalism that defies the self-improvement gospel of our time and the ethical imperatives of pop’s empowerment period. He’s not listening and studying, setting boundaries, doing self-care; as a substitute, he concludes, I’m what I’m. “When am I gonna study?” he asks himself on “Genesis,” then shrugs: “I suppose I prolly received’t.”
If there’s a through-line between Wallen and the second-biggest nation singer in America, Zach Bryan, it’s the way in which alcoholism has at all times lingered on the margins—not the carefree ingesting of Shaboozey’s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy),” however one thing darker and extra destined. Now Wallen’s crashing out in plain sight, crying to his ex that he’s made an enormous mistake after one other drunken, sleepless evening on “Falling Aside.” He’s a co-writer on that one, as he’s on “Kick Myself,” a tacky rap-rock second, although not with out its pathos. He’s cleaned his act up, stop his vices, consulted medical and non secular professionals, however stays depressing. “Kicked the shit that I used to make use of/However I simply can’t kick myself,” he raps despondently, observing that since sobriety, life’s solely gotten worse.