Blake Shelton - For Recreational Use Only

Blake Shelton’s new album is not bad… but it’s not great either.

His first studio album in four years and debut under the care of BBR Music Group and BMG Nashville after cutting ties with longtime label Warner Music Nashville, For Recreational Use Only was meant to usher in a new chapter for the indelible country star. However, the project only seems to affirm that Shelton has a lane and he stays in it.

Yes, the productions are bold, the compositions are rich and Shelton has never sounded better. With nothing new to say, though, how long can good be good enough?

From the start of For Recreational Use Only, you know exactly what you’re getting, with the album ticking all the boxes of a mainstream release: God. Check. Country. Check. The love of a good woman. Check.

The staunch opener ‘Stay Country or Die Tryin'’ is a paean to his roots. While more bogged down in rural buzzwords this time around, the blazing tune is not unlike his insipid hit, ‘Boys ‘Round Here’, from 2013 and 2019’s prideful anthem ‘God’s Country’. The now-expected duet with wife Gwen Stefani, ‘Hangin’ On’, lands much like the others – with a hollow thud – and the numbers about Heaven and the Hereafter are fine, if not a little soft-tossed.

For many of the dozen tracks, Shelton appears to simply go through the motions, repackaging the same formula that has kept him relevant for the last two decades. While it’s undoubtedly a smart move to stick to what you know, it’s a safe one, a tactic that has resulted in one more so-so album in a growing collection of them.

That’s not to say this album is a complete dud or its songs unspinnable. The album’s lead single ‘Texas’, with its ‘90s country nods and Western pop mystique, has more than proven Shelton’s ability to churn out hits a good ten years after his peak. Despite their eye-rolling word play, liquored-up anthems like ‘Don’t Mississippi’ and ‘Cold Can’ will likely also be just as inescapable this summer.

All in all, this album will probably be a success by industry standards. Not because it pushed any boundaries or said anything of great importance, but because it truly is for recreational use only. It’s inconsequential, a little predictable and, at this point, when consistency turns into complacency, why should we expect more?

At the end of the day, the machine must be fed and anything of substance will never truly satisfy.

5/10

Blake Shelton’s 2025 project, For Recreational Use Only, is available everywhere May 9 via Wheelhouse Records.

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