Warren Zeiders - Pretty Little Poison (2023) [Hi-Res]

If you think of TikTok only as a place where teenagers get famous covering pop songs or singing sad, bedroom-penned music, Warren Zeiders will change your perspective. Over the past couple of years, the twentysomething Pennsylvania native has racked up millions of views playing pretty, classic country. But while those clips were often acoustic, Zeiders' debut album is filled out with big production and his big, sandpapered voice. Tracks like "West Texas Weather" (as in: "She’s as wild as West Texas weather/ She can make a Midland gray sky fade away to a sunny day") definitely have a traditional feel. But Zeiders—who has said he's heavily influenced by Christian music and classic rock, in addition to country—has a voice that is also well suited to the ’80s hard-rock sound he plays with on "Pain Killer" (his delivery ranging from moody to tortured), "Tell Me Like It Is" and "Inside Your Head," a power ballad á la Skid Row or Cinderella. He leans into a Luke Combs vibe on "Coming Down High" and the title track, and—evidence of the Morgan Wallen effect—does bro-country on "Love's a Leaving." On that one, gruff-sounding Zeiders really goes for it at the chorus, punching hard on "Our love’s a leavin’." Fun "Black and Blue" packs a poppy kick. "Drive You Crazy" is a sweet acoustic guitar and fiddle ballad. He may not have completely settled into his own style yet, but almost all the tracks highlight Zeiders' unique way of slurring his lyrics—drawling vowels and dropping g's and smashing words together. It's a sound that doesn't seem specific to one place so much as to him. Zeiders comes from Hershey, Pennsylvania, and later played lacrosse and studied business in Maryland. He sings how "Some Tennessee or Kentuckys"—as in whiskey, of course—"gonna set me right again tonight," but brags that he’s as strong as “Pittsburgh Steel." It’s all a testament to the broad “boundaries" of country music. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz