First Listen: Holler Staff Reacts to Tyler Childers - Snipe Hunter

After years of continuously evolving, experimenting, and expanding his sound, Tyler Childers returns with Snipe Hunter, an album that feels both like a continuation and a bold departure.

Building off the creative foundation laid in Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven and Rustin' in the Rain, Childers again embraces new sonic territory, weaving together his Appalachian-rooted songwriting with electric, experimental rock and expansive spiritual observation. Produced by the iconic Rick Rubin, Snipe Hunter is an album that once again challenges expectations, pushing Childers’ artistic notions while still staying deeply connected to his storytelling roots.

Here, the Holler staff offer their takes on Snipe Hunter, diving deep into its complexities, its wild energy, and its delicate balance between the familiar and the experimental.

On Snipe Hunter, Tyler Childers doesn’t just return, he expands.

The Kentucky native continues his lifelong excavation of his heritage, memory, and place - but this time, he digs deeper into the electric unknown. Blending his holler-born folk with searing rock riffs, spiritual inquiry, and character-rich storytelling, Snipe Hunter is an album of contradictions that somehow cohere: its heavy but buoyant, grounded but metaphysical, sharp but self aware.

Produced with the kind of raw precision that leaves room for both silence and chaos, the album thrives in those in-between places; from past, present, and future, sin and grace, tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious. This is Childers at his most musically adventurous yet still deeply rooted, experimenting not for the sake of novelty, but to stretch the frame through which he tells stories. Whether he’s chasing thunder in the holler, crossing state lines, or simply laying a track in the woods, there's always a soul in the details.

While many moments echo the grit and grandeur of his earlier work, Snipe Hunter also presents a broader worldview. One that reckons with transformation, wonder, and the weight of personal  myth. It’s not an album about leaving things behind, it’s about honoring them by telling the god’s honest truth.

8.7 / 10

What was your overall initial reaction to the album?

Expansive, strange, but unshakably grounded. Childers continues to evolve, but never loses the Appalachian fire that lit his path.

What was your favorite track and why?

“Tom Cat And a Dandy.” It’s cinematic and vulnerable, backed by strings and a choir that elvates its sense of time slipping by. It feels like a curtain call to the younger self Childers has both outgrown but also the collective understanding that death is all something we share, and often comes too soon.

What was your least favorite track and why?

“Bitin’ List.” While it’s sonically tight and unapologetically bold, its lyrics feel looser and more playful than profound. That said…

What songs, if any, are bound to be hits? And why?

“Bitin’ List” could easily land with fans because of its energy and sharp delivery - it reads like a diss list set to a backwoods banger. “Eatin’ Big Time” also feels built for live shows: rowdy, witty, and full of that familiar Childers punch.

What was the most notable lyric? And why?

From “Snipe Hunt” - the title track. “I flung the door open and let the heat rise / To heat up the world cause I thought it was mine / And all the while all my plants froze inside /Cause there’s only so much to go round”

Does this album bear any comparison to past or present artists? Describe.

It calls to mind the emotional edge of Jason Isbell, a sort of spiritual wildness of Willie Nelson, and a ragged mysticism of early Bob Dylan. But even so, it’s still unmistakably Childers.

If you could sum this album up in three words, what would they be?

Mythic. Restless. Rooted.

What grade would you give the album cover?

A-. It’s both earthy and enigmatic; true to Childers form and story, with just enough mystery to match the record’s deeper undertones.

Dressing a kill first requires gutting, splitting the animal from pelvis to sternum and removing all vital organs and tangled entrails. Then, the carcass is cleaned and processed, its hide removed and meat divided, hopefully, for a purpose.

It’s difficult to put into words exactly what it’s like to experience Tyler Childers’ new album, Snipe Hunter, but this isn’t far off, the collection an unsightly, eviscerating, necessary process. As listeners, we are both the hunter and the hunted here, the ones who must dissect the album’s soul and sinew while also being hollowed out by it and repurposed ourselves.

Across the album’s 13 tracks, Childers–with producer Rick Rubin’s eclectic genius on full display–delivers the performance of his career so far. There seems to be a fire in his belly and a grit to his whetted baritone as he lets fly feral howls and hums of “Hare Krishna” alongside songs of undying love and unflinching faith.

It’s an album that the artist has been striving for for the last few years, Can I Take My Hounds To Heaven and Rustin’ In The Rain merely the springboards upon which Snipe Hunter was able to ascend. The colorful ruralisms and swirling existentialism those past releases flirted with were fully unleashed here, creating a space where fanatical kin and squirrelly hunting buddies could meet in an ancient existence and on a heavenly plane.

Tyler Childers has flayed open his own boundaries and influences, stripping himself bare of expectation, all to get to the guts of what it is he needed to say.

9.5 / 10

What was your overall initial reaction to the album?

It started off a little rocky for me, but I quickly fell into the groove of it, with the overall genius revealing itself in the end.

What was your favorite track and why?

‘Tirtha Yatra’ is the most magnetic song I’ve ever heard.

What was your least favorite track and why?

While charming and fun, ‘Down Under’ is a bit of a head-scratcher for me.

What songs, if any, are bound to be hits? And why?

If only as a brilliant dismissal, ‘Bitin’ List’ should absolutely get its flowers.

What was the most notable lyric? And why?

“To put it plain I just don’t like you / Not a thing about the way you is / And if there ever come a time I got rabies / You’re high on my bitin’ list” – Say less, sis.

Does this album bear any comparison to past or present artists? Describe.

While it’s easy to lump Childers’ work in with that of Sturgill Simpson’s, Snipe Hunter is a singular release. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard anything like this collection. The way the artist pairs mundane ponderings with sublime spirituality is something of true genius.

If you could sum this album up in three words, what would they be?

Peak. Tyler. Childers.

What grade would you give the album cover or the attached creative?

A+

Snipe Hunter doesn’t just take off, it launches at colossal speed and never lets up, driven forward by exceptional musical experimentation.

Any doubts about having Rick Rubin and his oft-heavy-hand produce can very quickly be dismissed. The album rolls with a gritty percussive backbeat that only takes a step back when absolutely necessary. It’s also filled to the brim with moments of perfectly unexpected instrumentation, as if the spirit of Honeyboy Garth Hudson is imparting his spontaneous wisdom on those in the studio. Even ‘Nose on the Grindstone’ is reshaped by a shudderingly deep bass that reinvents it within the context of this singular record.

The pure ferocity of ‘Bitin’ List’ might be cause for concern if it was written by any other artist - “if there ever come a time when I had rabies, you’re high on my bitin’ list” - but applied to the backing of a uniquely modern Appalachian sound, it makes hilarious sense. I would love for someone to direct me to the next artist who could make a statement like that work, because I have no idea where they are and I’m not sure I’d believe they exist anyway.

Moments on ‘Watch Out’ and ‘Dirty Ought Trill’ bring Sound and Fury-era Sturgill Simpson to mind, while ‘Down Under’ finds Childers tapping into a weird pop melody (and pretty weird song topic too). Strip back the edge though, and it’s not miles away from something that would get radio play - it just still has that slightly unreadable Childers label on it, one that keeps things original.

We've seen the Kentuckian preach before, and he’s still doing it on Snipe Hunt, the choral vocals on ‘Tirtha Yatra’ and ‘Tomcat and Dandy’ being nothing short of transportary. This time, though, he’s sermonizing about himself and his life, and does not care what people think about it. The main sentiment through the whole thing? “I’m Tyler Childers, take me or leave me, but I’m here.”

Is it disappointing that Jersey Giant isn’t on the tracklist? Initially, yes. Does it take one verse into Snipe Hunter to realise we should all shut up about that old song? Immediately, yes. Childers is on the hunt, and whatever it is he’s after stands no chance. Somehow he’s reached another level that didn’t quite seem possible. Album of the year? I wouldn’t rule it out.

9 / 10

What was your favorite track from the album? And why?

The raw vocals on ‘Nose on the Grindstone’ keeps it high on the rankings, ‘Bitin List’ has to be up there, ‘Eatin Big Time’ just blows away as an album opener though.

What was your least favorite track from the album? And why?

‘Down Under’ is probably one I won’t go back to very often, even though it’s a lot of fun. Out of any of the tracks, it’s perhaps a little out of place.

What songs, if any, are bound to be hits? And why?

I could see ‘Bitin’ List’ being popular. It’s a middle finger to the world and that’s not exactly a new concept for a song, but no one’s doing it the same way Childers is. It’s crazy.

What was the most notable lyric? And why (good / bad)?

“He worked with words / The thing is words work funny / Ya weld’em right ya know they’re liable / To effect the way you move” from ‘Cuttin Teeth’ - it all starts and ends with a handful of words, what you do with them determines where you go.

Does this album bear any comparisons to past or present artists? Describe.

The more fiery moments on tracks like ‘Watch Out’ and ‘Dirty Ought Trill’ remind me of Sturgill Simpson leaving it all on a track like ‘Best Clockmaker on Mars’, or the energy of ‘Mercury in Retrograde’.

If you could sum this album up in three words, what would they be?

Experimental, Rural, Childers.

What grade would you give the album cover or the attached creative?

It’s an A, beautiful work from Tony Moore - he’s worked on the art for Childers for a while, but this one knocks the others out the park. It’s so cool.

For more on Tyler Childers, see below: