Jarrod Dickenson – Gosforth Civic Theatre

If Jarrod Dickenson’s third studio album, Big Talk, sounds like a mighty roar of defiance, that’s not a design choice or a marketing decision. The big Texan is settling scores all over town.

So, what happened in the years since the release of Dickenson’s soulful sophomore long-player, Ready the Horses, to have turned this honey-voiced southern gentleman into a brawler? After a major label deal-gone-bad threatened to choke off his career and Covid complications left him with a life-long medical condition, Dickenson would have certainly been forgiven for retreating to his Nashville home to lick wounds and maybe write a collection of introspective self-pity anthems.

Instead, the hardships and infuriation of recent years have only added steel to the resolve of an artist already willing to do it the hard way, prepared to stand in the face of a music business that shows dwindling regard for the brand of artistry that first inspired him to pick up a guitar and sing for his life.

This album represents Dickenson’s most direct and uncompromising body of song writing to date, and his decision to occupy the producer’s chair has injected Big Talk with a drive and coherence that compliments the muscle of its material.