It is certainly a surprise to hear Tyler Childers fantasize about making a pilgrimage to Kurukshetra—an Indian city north of Delhi where the Mahabharata was set—but it is not a shock. While he may be the first person with a Kentucky drawl to sing about dharma, rolling “like the Pandavas” with his brothers, and bringing his wife and mother to a nirvana-like oasis where they sing Hare Krishna and West Virginia fiddle standards alike, it is, somehow, not completely out of the way for one of country music’s most singular artists.
Ever since Purgatory, his now-classic 2017 album, turned him into a star Appalachia could call their own, Childers has made it his mission to redefine what that means. Yes, his father worked in the coal industry. Yes, he grew up in a trailer that sat next to a Baptist church. And yes, he plays a fiddle as if he’s soundtracking bootleggers in a wagon race. But he also was one of the few country stars to speak up in support of Black Lives Matter in 2020. Two years later, he made a gospel record that preached interfaith harmony, and more recently, he became the first country artist on a major label to release a music video that features a gay love story.
For years, Childers has dealt in statements and had his “legitimacy” as a country musician pinballed by press and fans. His music has never been co-opted by outside noise, but his releases have been neatly packaged and limited in scope. Long Violent History is strictly a fiddle record; Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? is his take on gospel; Rustin’ in the Rain channels Elvis. On Snipe Hunter, however, he lets everything hang in the wind, blending vintage ballads, rockabilly, and psychedelia with renewed artistic freedom. It’s his most free-spirited and pleasantly weird album to date.
Perhaps it was the magic touch of producer Rick Rubin or the tranquility of recording in Hawaii and Malibu that allowed Childers to drop his shoulders. Regardless, Snipe Hunter reveals his quirks while staying true to the traditions that made him. There is a Southern-rock ripper that sounds like an oncoming panic attack (“Snipe Hunt”), a ragtime stomp about the person Childers would bite first if he had rabies (“Bitin’ List”), and a pair of tracks on the back end (“Tirtha Yarti,” “Tomcat and a Dandy”) that play on his admiration of Hinduism, even interpolating a Hare Krishna chant in the style of a 19th-century battle hymn. (In a GQ interview, Childers described a recent trip to India, where he became acquainted with “Krishna devotees” whose practice gave him “just as much strength and guidance as his Christian upbringing.”)
Even with these more experimental elements, this is still a Tyler Childers album, rooted in vulnerable songwriting and tonal grit. Take “Eatin’ Big Time,” where he scowls like a mad, gluttonous king and gives a gruesome account of gutting prey, eventually demanding to know if his audience has ever had the chance “to hold and blow a thousand fucking dollars?!” This chaotic, semi-ironic opener leads into “Cuttin’ Teeth,” a serene, pedal steel-led tune about the early days of a country singer, presumably Childers, who lives gig-to-gig with a “bunch of West Virginia deadbeats.” He sounds wistful, as if things were a whole lot simpler back then.
The most poignant tracks are two singles, “Oneida” and “Nose on the Grindstone,” known to fans from previously released live versions. Both originate in Childers’ Purgatory era, a period defined by hunger and heartache, and follow the stripped-down, “three chords and the truth” recipe that shot him to fame. The polished, Rubin-produced studio versions simultaneously recall Childers’ initial flame and mark its evolution—an evolution realized in the richly layered arrangement of “Getting to the Bottom,” where he celebrates his nearly six years of sobriety by wondering just how hammered his old drinking buddies are right now.
As intentional and disciplined as Childers’ releases have been, it’s refreshing to hear him make an album without an agenda or a rulebook. Through the detours into Australian ecology and the cheeky mispronunciations of Sanskrit words, he’s still what everyone says he is: an Appalachian man with a penchant for storytelling. Snipe Hunter is his first record to capture and celebrate the depth behind that.
Bruce Springsteen was right. At the risk of simplifying the value of this impressive box set, giving away the main storyline of his new biopic, and flattening decades of mythmaking, the reality is just what Springsteen always claimed. Even when he tried the material with his closest collaborators, using some of the strongest songs he had ever written, the most powerful version of Nebraska is still the one he recorded at home in Colts Neck in January 1982. Just a lonely man in his early thirties with an acoustic guitar, a TASCAM PortaStudio, and an Echoplex, capturing solo demos for what he thought would be a full-band project. Everything that came after was an experiment.
But what an experiment it turned out to be. For those who don’t know the story, here it is in brief. After the success of his upbeat 1980 single “Hungry Heart” and a long streak of relentless touring and critical praise, Springsteen entered one of the most creatively intense chapters of his life. He began by writing the grim ballads and shadowy lullabies of Nebraska, which he then tried to recreate with the E Street Band and in solo studio sessions before ultimately choosing to release the home demos. He did no press and no tour, which left him free to keep writing, and that work became 1984’s massive commercial hit Born in the U.S.A. During that time, he tossed aside enough songs to fill multiple albums, later shared through collections like Tracks and Tracks II: The Lost Albums. He also found time to help revive the career of early rock’n’roll icon Gary U.S. Bonds, co-writing and co-producing two comeback records, contributing a Grammy-winning song to Donna Summer, and hitting the gym with enthusiasm.
It might sound like a golden moment, but for Bruce, it felt like a creative cage—the kind of brooding, restless chapter that inspires a filmmaker to cast Jeremy Allen White to play you on screen. The twist is that the most crucial moments, from the original Nebraska to the electric and explosive version of “Born in the U.S.A.,” happened quickly and naturally, before anyone could complicate the process. Unlike anything else in his official catalog, Nebraska 82: Expanded Edition offers a clear window into that moment. Within this tight collection is a sharper, more complete image of one of Springsteen’s most legendary and personal records—still the one he treasures most—along with rare insight into his creative rhythm.
The set includes a newly remastered version of the album, a disc of solo acoustic outtakes carrying the same raw emotion, the legendary Electric Nebraska sessions, and a live album and film capturing Springsteen performing the record start to finish in an empty New Jersey theater earlier this year. The live material feels reverent, with beautiful support from former Bob Dylan bandmate Larry Campbell. The remaster reveals that, despite the album’s association with the birth of lo-fi, the sound is richer and more intentional than much of what followed. Listen to the last half minute of “Atlantic City” through headphones and focus on how the acoustic guitars, mandolin, and background vocals fade away layer by layer. It’s a reminder of how much careful craft went into creating such stark beauty.
Unlike his earlier box sets for Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, this one isn’t about showcasing how many different paths he could have taken. It’s about sharpening the vision. Where Nebraska is known for its unbroken mood, Electric Nebraska jerks between heartland laments and roaring rock songs across its eight tracks. These takes feel like rough sketches more than finished recordings—mostly Springsteen on electric guitar and vocals, Max Weinberg on drums, and Garry Tallant on bass—hinting at an album that could have been more accessible and mainstream in 1982. And yet, this raw version of “Downbound Train,” with its clanging rhythms and unsettling bridge, may be one of the strangest things he ever put to tape.
It’s easy to see why Springsteen thought these sessions didn’t work. Versions of “Open All Night” and “Johnny 99,” which on the original album burn with desperate energy, sound here like something a bar band could fall into with a casual count-in and some good-natured rockabilly riffs. On one hand, it highlights how his delivery gives shape and gravity to his songwriting. (Compare the early acoustic “Thunder Road” to its triumphant album version for proof.) On the other hand, slipping into different musical skins was a key part of his process then. He could turn something as playful as “Pink Cadillac” into a moaning, shadowy reflection of itself, as if the character had returned to earth wrecked and hollow, fixated on one thought.
For devoted fans, these shifts are what make the box set essential: witnessing how songs like “Working on a Highway” transformed from a chilling ballad called “Child Bride” into a loud, laughing, raucous number. Some of the outtakes, like the quietly devastating country song “Losin’ Kind,” have been passed around unofficially for years. But this set also reveals two entirely unheard songs: “On the Prowl” and “Gun in Every Home.” In the first, he ends with a dizzying repetition of “searching,” drenched in slapback echo that mimics the sound of a live band. In the second, he paints a nightmarish portrait of suburban life and ends with a bare, defeated admission: “I don’t know what to do.”
Within a single song, Springsteen might take the role of a killer hiding in the dark or a runaway on the move, either escaping or facing the question of whether being caught is actually a strange kind of salvation. That’s the point of sitting in the dark: you can’t see the exit. Yet sometimes he caught brief glimpses of where it all might lead. Along with the original demo tape, Springsteen sent a letter to his manager, Jon Landau. He went through each track, detailing the grim subject matter, floating arrangement ideas, and occasionally letting a sliver of optimism shine through.
He scribbled a note next to “Born in the U.S.A.,” which appears here in two early forms: a heavy acoustic blues and a full-band rocker stripped of its later synths, leaving no doubt about how the narrator feels. “Might have potential,” he wrote. That small spark of belief carried him through. He knew these songs would take work, and that truly understanding them would take time. But he also trusted that at the end of each hard-earned day, there would still be magic in the night.
