Further From the Country’s first and title track feels like a car speeding down a prairie road. The bass line and punchy drums tell you from the first note that William Prince is moving away from where he’s been, but his unmistakable baritone and floating fiddle melodies come in to reassure you he isn’t too far from home.
The two-time Juno winner’s fifth LP marks a departure from the comfort of the easy-listening love ballads and gospel songs he’s known for.
His strongest lyrical effort yet, the album draws inspiration from William’s experiences on the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, where he was born, and journeying to the places music brought him. It’s him at his most vulnerable and honest, exploring themes of intergenerational trauma, substance abuse and mental hardships, but also love and gratitude.
“For the First Time” is one of the album’s most emotionally poignant tracks. Showcasing the power of William’s voice, it slowly builds to a chill-inducing orchestral bridge as he cries out “It don’t break me like it used to.”
William’s devastatingly matter-of-fact storytelling on “All the Same” and “Damn” captures the feeling of being trapped in the place you were raised, painting scenes of the people who lived in his small community, like an old friend telling you a sad story.
Journeying away from known comforts, the album’s sound draws from a wider variety of genres and inspirations, studded with electronic sounds and rock-inspired instrumentals.
“It leans into every influence rather than shuttering them,” he said in his artist’s statement. “It peeks back at things that used to break me so profoundly but now I am strong enough to live with.”
Over the western-inspired “Thousand Miles of Chain” that transports the listener to the barstool of a frontier saloon, William hauntingly delivers one of the album’s most provocative metaphors about intergenerational trauma: “Feels like I was born with a thousand miles of chain / Now we’ve bound our sons and daughters in a thousand miles of chain.”
The record’s more lighthearted country tunes, the bluesy “Flowers on the Dash” and the pop inspired “More of the Same,” provide some emotional relief while maintaining the album’s storytelling and rich instrumentals.
“More of the Same” was a kiss on the forehead that I had expected to be a punch to the gut. After the eight-track display of Williams’s ability to turn pain into something so evocative, I expected the album’s final song to be deeper and darker than the pop country number about gratitude. “If I believe good things / Good things might happen to me just yet,” he sings.
Further From the Country is the work of an artist who is confident in his talents as a vocalist and songwriter, who recognizes that growth and beauty come from a place of discomfort. I can only hope William Prince continues to share himself so boldly.
