Hi everyone! Herethony Losttano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds album, Mutiny After Midnight.

This is the new and second album from Mr. Johnny Blue Skies, teaming up with The Dark Clouds for this one. It's the second under this name, anyway, because in case you did not know, Johnny Blue Skies is in fact not actually Mr. Johnny Blue Skies. It's the alter ego of country singer and songwriter Mr. Sturgill Simpson, one of the genre's rising stars who's really been hitting that sweet spot between commercial and critical success as of late.

Really, ever since he broke through with albums like Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, and a few years after that, A Sailor's Guide to Earth, he's really become one of the genre's most beloved new faces — new in quotes, because, like, it's been 10 years since that last album.

And since Sailor's Guide, he's continued making projects that are forward-thinking, true to their cultural roots, and can also fill out a venue. Simpson is a triple threat in that way, though in recent years he seems to be focused more on creative freedom than sheer numbers, like with the Sound & Fury soundtrack, which was all over the place stylistically, even dipping into some rock vibes.

We also had those sister bluegrass albums he dropped, his most recent project which was a bit of an outlaw country jaunt, and we also had the first Johnny Blue Skies record, too, which did see Sturgill return to more of a modern, progressive country sound. But honestly, I didn't really review the record in depth or think that much of it when I first heard the thing, because of not only the name change here, but, Sturgill insisting on, I guess, a bit of a different vocal approach on this record, which I found to be a little weird and not quite as good as the singing style I had grown used to on prior albums.

So I thought – foolishly, I guess – that Johnny Blue Skies would just be a kind of a one-off detour kind of thing. But Simpson really continues to feel out this alter ego with a second album as a means of, I guess, creating more separation between himself and his artistic voice, as it were, and maybe giving himself more freedom to try new things in the process, too. Because for sure, Mr. Johnny Blue Skies, as a name goes, doesn't have quite the same baggage coming along with it as the name we would attach to Sturgill's first three records. But continuing to go down this road is not even the most surprising thing about Mutiny After Midnight.

Simpson also took a pretty massive gamble on this record, too: making its commercial release strictly physical, or for sale. I mean, y'know, there are people hearing this album online in whatever way they're hearing it, for sure, but there is no official commercial means of consuming this album, like on a streaming platform such as Spotify or Apple. So, this has left a lot of fans in a position where if they want to hear and support this record, they have had to go out and buy it. And Sturgill has released a series of vinyl variants for this thing, the whole shebang. And the result of this decision has been about 60,000 sales first week for this project. I mean, people I've spoken to who sell records have said this thing has been difficult to keep on the shelves.

And this album currently sits right now at #3 on the Billboard 200, which is crazy, again, for a record with no streaming support, and also it's released under an alter ego, a second name.

So, again, it's safe to say Sturgill bet on himself big time with this project and won, regardless of whatever the reception of this album is, because I mean, these are the kinds of sales that some artists kill for at this point.

So there's that. And then there is the sound of this album, which is a pretty big pivot from the first Johnny Blue Skies record, really anything Sturgill has done up until this point. Because sure, while there are some country vibes and sounds and influences to be had here on Mutiny After Midnight, there are even more sounds on this thing coming from the worlds of rock and funk and, especially, disco. I mean, the disco balls all over the art of this thing are no joke, and in some respects this record is more of an homage to dance music than even the recent Harry Styles album is.

I'm not trying to get ahead of myself here in the review, though, because as much as I do admire the many bold moves that are being taken with this project, I don't really like the music.

First off, Sturgill's insistence on hiding his full power level vocally as Johnny Blue Skies continues to bewilder me. It also doesn't help that his voice is so buried deep in many of the mixes on these songs, too. But yeah, I just don't think the singing on this record is all that good, which again is stunning given how many expressive and great vocal performances are all over Metamodern, as well as Sailor's Guide. So, why is Sturgill singing in this faux husky, flat, low-energy, ho-hum, just boring vocal style that sounds like someone's uncle trying to be cool? Is part of the Johnny Blue Skies alter ego that he's not that great of a singer?

Because on some level I feel like I'm being baited here, especially when I look at the lyrics to this album, which a lot of the time are so ridiculously flirtatious and sexual and trying to be slick. "Girl, you look as fine as a hundred ninety-nine toothed comb." "Your body's hotter than a brothel in Guam." And these are, like, not even the only gag-worthy moments on the album. "That's why you gotta stay on that D until you hit that G."

Also, take for example the opening track, "Make America Fuck Again," which alternates between musings about fucking and revolution, and Sturgill dealing with ADHD and autism, as well as depression, by medicating himself with ketamine.

Don't get me wrong, there are some songs and verses on this LP that express genuine feelings of romance and devotion that are fine. I also appreciate the sentiments of love and equality on "Everyone Is Welcome", and there's some pretty respectable commentary about the current state of the world vis-à-vis fascism and bigotry and economic inequity on the closing track. But sometimes it does feel like this record is a pussy joke or two away from being a Wheeler Walker Jr. project, as it's unsure how unserious or serious it wants to be at any given moment. Which I guess, the vocals being as buried as they are ends up being a kind of blessing in disguise in that respect. And these boundaries of intention, in my opinion, are only further blurred by the music itself.

Again, [the album] basically brings these hokey, unflattering fusions of funk and country and disco, which maybe in a vacuum seems kind of like an interesting, novel, playful idea. But we've actually already seen records like this in the past already, from country stars who hit relevancy in the '50s and '60s but then struggled to stay on the charts once the '70s and the disco revolution rolled in, and then made these kind of musical and stylistic pivots toward that in order to maintain what relevance they could.

And Sturgill is driving straight into the same pothole on this record, and doing it with hindsight isn't making watching it any easier, 'cause the final result still sounds like a bunch of rednecks who play dance tunes at local dives to get laid. Like, there's a reason this sound didn't really take off at the time that it was a thing, at least not for that long, maybe with the exception of a handful of urban cowboy bangers like Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" or Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy", which itself is a commentary on sort of being a cowboy or a country figure who kind of sells out.

So sadly, once again, Sturgill, in my opinion, doesn't accomplish much of anything bringing all of these sounds together, outside of losing what respective qualities that makes each of them interesting on their own. The only song where I would say Sturgill and his band are, like, actually kind of on to something is "Situation", a track whose big beats and smooth, plucky pedal steel bring a great groove. I've never heard this instrument sound so funky. The vocals still bite, of course, but at least the band sounds good. They hit a nice click during an instrumental outro that has a key change to it.

The bass player is kinda nailing it on the track "Venus". And the band also strikes up quite the jam on the closing track, too. But you know what? Even the instrumental chemistry on this project leaves something to be desired, 'cause pretty much every track on this thing has this fake, glossy, vintage, washed-out veneer on it, which might also be part of why the vocals are so low. Because it seems like part of the intent with this album is to create a vibe or a sound that is like some kind of lost artifact, or a dream of a memory of a bygone era. But honestly, what aesthetic window dressing Mutiny After Midnight does bring to the table is just not as great as just what a clear-sounding album would have been.

Finally, the most obnoxious thing about this LP is that talking about it, especially in a negative sense, is gonna for sure bring a bunch of comments about, you know, you not getting it or whatever. Because of course this whole project was rolled out in a way to appeal purely to the most hardcore fans in Sturgill's fanbase, people who went out and bought the record and would have an insane sense of FOMO were they to allow this record to just kind of slip by them.

Because as a country record, it's just not really that appealing, not that rustic, the songwriting is quite mediocre. As a dance record, the grooves on this thing are pretty boring. As a rock record, it doesn't really have that much bite either. And again, Sturgill can sing way better than what he is doing here.

So I have no idea why he continues to limit himself in this way. There's a handful of okay tracks, and I suppose there's like a novelty to what it's trying to attempt, but does like it accomplish it? Is the execution great? No. But yeah, overall pretty much feeling a light 4 on this album.

Anthony Fantano, Johnny Blue Skies, forever.