Eric Church - Evangeline vs. The Machine

'Chief' is neither a ceremonial title, nor one that Eric Church takes lightly as his moniker.

As he's done since the beginning of his career, the Chief exercises the rights of such a name to follow whatever musical path he sees fit at the time. On the compact, 8-track Evangeline vs the Machine, he's chasing youth, stating, "As I get older, I'm looking for things that make me feel not as old."

Recapturing one's youth can be a dangerous dream to follow, nostalgia being scarily capable of rewriting and romanticising pasts. It's one Church has shown himself to be frequently skilled at navigating through, particularly through a career highlight like Springsteen. The career-defining single came out in 2011, though, when chasing the glory of days gone by was more innocently nostalgic. For many, and seemingly for Church too, it now seems to have become a grappling tool for survival in a world that seems ever more fractured.

On Evangeline vs. the Machine, he hurtles down the path far more haphazardly, whiplashed and bouncing off jagged corners as he veers between crushed hopes, redemption, and despair. All this is sonically mashed into his characteristic heartland rock, soul, blues, and, if you look hard enough, perhaps a shade of country.

Of course, you'll have to search harder than you'd like for the meaning of some of the actually excellent songs on this album because, like your archetypal leader picking just the right moment to smile for the cameras and shake a few hands, he's skulked by a shadow in the shape of producer Jay Joyce.

If Church were a leader and Joyce his Chief of Staff, then the latter would be guilty of breaking a cardinal sin of the role: remaining unseen. Make everything your star does seem natural and like it came from their own hand. It's impossible with a production style like Joyce's, which is more of a scream than a whisper, a hurricane rather than a soft breeze.

It's there from the first track, 'Hands of Time', as tried, trusted and breezily enjoyable a throwback heartland rock effort as we'd expect from Church. As he plays to his fellow romantics and youth-chasers, name-dropping at least ten different classic song names (more on this later) and finding himself somewhere between a church pew and a bar stool, Joyce lurks ominously, never seeming to trust the listener to understand Church's lyricism without production flourishes so on the nose they may well knock yours off your face.

At the mention of redemption, we're blasted with a chorus of gospel "oohs" whilst the whole track thrums to single beats of echoing percussion, ending with the sound of ticking clock hands. The hands of time, get it? Yes, Jay. We do.

It's similarly overshadowing and distracting on 'Storm In Their Blood', an otherwise lyrically rich discussion of masculine rage containing such lines as "Leonidas on a spartan sea, the lion of Judah flippin' tables on Pharisees". It all gets swept up amongst the huge choral backing, which, if the choir were being paid by the grunt or syllable, would turn the album into a very expensive production. Church's vocal skill saves the track from being unpleasant to listen to, but the combined effect somehow leaves you stuffed but still hungry.

The constant throwbacks to classic songs in Church's lyrics continue throughout the album, as he idly throws in reference after reference. He dives deeper on the mysterious and, by now, typically overproduced 'Johnny', mourning the state of the world his sons will grow up in. Here, instead of simply paying lip-service to a classic song to remember the good old days, Church at least uses 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia' to observe the deteriorating social landscape of today, leaving the devil to feast on souls and crush hope.

"Yeah we're holding on to hope but we're hanging on by a thread / Won't you put on our rattlesnake boot and crush that serpent's head".

Being this song is a reflection on the Covenant School Shooting in Nashville, it's hard to see what hope Church is actually holding on to. It leaves both Church and us as the listener conflicted - why is Church chasing his youth when he can't seem to recapture one of its greatest privileges?

Similarly, the classic song references continue as Church rounds everything off with a cover of Tom Waits' 'Clap Hands'. It's an unhopeful song by an even more unhopeful lyricist, as Church finesses the junkier feel of the original whilst retaining its mystique. It's hardly an emblem of optimism.

So where does this all leave Eric Church? Has he really lost hope in the world?

Perhaps it's best to hone in on the refreshingly scaled-back and somewhat more well-rounded titular 'Evangeline'. Here, we have a simple acoustic guitar scattered intermittently with atmospheric strings, gentle percussion and touches of brass. It's still a stacked production sheet, but it's executed much more elegantly and subtly, allowing us to actually hear the shape of his voice as he sings about the redemptive power of music, particularly as he skilfully covers loss, rebirth, staying true to one's self and the inevitability of life's bruises. Set alongside the heavy production of the other seven tracks, 'the machine' so to speak, it creates the perfect encapsulation of the album's title.

While the production and overuse of song references on this album may be hard to overlook, if you can, you'll see Church still remains the everyman with one foot in the past and one eye tentatively on the future. We can only hope that Church's future, and that of the everyman, will look a little brighter.

6/10

Eric Church’s 2025 project, Evangeline vs. The Machine, is available everywhere on May 2 via BigEC Records / UMG Recordings.

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