Seasons Change

It took a long time for Scotty McCreery to get to his third record, Seasons Change. Five years to be precise, a half-decade that saw the American Idol finalist undergo some major life changes, chief among them a departure from his post-Idol record label Mercury Nashville. The imprint dropped him following "Southern Belle" -- a 2015 single that didn't crack the Top 40 -- and he resurfaced in 2018 on Triple Tigers with Seasons Change, a record whose very title acknowledges that he's no longer the eager, bright-eyed kid he was at the dawn of the decade. The change isn't just superficial. For the first time, McCreery co-writes every one of the songs on an album, teaming with a host of professional Nashville songwriters, including Jessi Alexander, who co-wrote Lee Brice's tear-jerker "I Drive Your Truck" and David Lee Murphy, who had a hit back in 1994 with "Dust on the Bottle." Many other writers are involved on Seasons Change, but those two indicate the tenor and tone of the album: It's an album whose heart belongs in a different era, one that feels much older than McCreery's 24 years. Despite a few surface affectations, such as the faintest hint of a drum loop on the ballad "This Is It," the retro-soul groove of "Barefootin'," and a feint toward hip-hop cadence on "Move It on Out," there's nary a trace of the R&B influence that's so fashionable in the late 2010s, nor is there anything resembling the bro-country of the early 2010s. This is an album firmly and proudly rooted in the tuneful mainstream country of the '90s. Frankly, this is a good fit for McCreery. A singer who always sounded a fair bit older than his years, he feels comfortable with the throwback sensibility of Seasons Change, as if he's finally found a home. There's a charm to his light touch, but that wouldn't be enough to make Seasons Change as ingratiating as it is. That's all down to all the smartly constructed commercial cuts, given a handsome polish by producers Frank Rogers, Derek Wells, and Aaron Eshuis. When combined with the singer's ease, these elements turn Seasons Change into McCreery's best album yet.