Drayton Farley has never exactly hidden his influences. He has openly cited fellow Alabaman Jason Isbell as a major inspiration, and the comparison has followed him for good reason. The songwriting, the emotional weight, the attention to detail in the everyday wreckage of life, it’s all there. Having Sadler Vaden on guitar doesn’t exactly make people stop making that connection either.

Still, Drayton has been carving out his own path for a while now, and one of the benefits of seeing an artist live multiple times is getting to watch that evolution happen in real time. I’ve had the chance to see him a few times now, and I’ve watched that progression from a guy with a guitar singing sad country songs into more of a rocker with a full band behind him. A Heavy Duty Heart, his fourth studio album, lands somewhere in the middle of those two versions of Drayton. It still carries the weight and intimacy that first pulled people in, but it also sounds like a guy who has grown a little, both musically and personally.

More than anything, this feels like his love album.

That doesn’t mean it’s soft, or that it suddenly forgets how to hurt. Drayton still knows how to pull the sad sack country string as well as just about anybody in his lane. He can still write the kind of line that sounds like it came from the bottom of a bottle and the middle of the night. But the emotional center of A Heavy Duty Heart feels different. This is the sound of a man who has built something. A family man now, and that reality shows up all over these songs.

The record is at its best when it leans into that. Songs about the girl, the life they’ve built together, and the ache of missing that life when the road takes him away from it. That’s where the album feels most honest and most lived in. There’s a steadiness to it that wouldn’t have been there on an earlier Drayton record, and that steadiness works in its favor.

That shift hits me a little differently these days too. I still love my sad sack country. Probably always will. But I’ve noticed more and more songs about the girl the writer has, not just the one he lost or can’t quite catch, making my annual Best Of lists. Once you find the right one yourself, those songs start to land with a little more force. They stop sounding like the calmer tracks on the record and start sounding like the real hard stuff, the songs that are actually risking something by being sincere.

That’s where A Heavy Duty Heart succeeds most. It doesn’t abandon the old Drayton Farley. It just broadens him. There’s still doubt, longing, restlessness, and regret in the mix. But now there’s also gratitude, commitment, and the kind of perspective that only comes from surviving enough life to know what matters when the noise clears. And it helps a lot when you have someone at home who helps clear that noise.

The standout tracks for me right now are “Love We Mean,” “It’s Called Doubt,” “The Luckier Ones,” “The Way It Goes,” and “Turn Around.” A couple of those could very easily grow into 8-star songs before the year is over. That’s usually a good sign. The songs with staying power tend to be the ones that don’t show all their cards on first listen.

This isn’t Drayton Farley trying to reinvent himself. It’s Drayton Farley revealing a fuller version of himself. And for a fourth album, that might be even better.

7 star songs:
Love We Mean, It’s Called Doubt, The Luckier Ones, The Way It Goes, Turn Around