I'm About to Come Alive

There are no feel-good Nashville-style hits here — even the relatively upbeat tunes have a bittersweet tinge to them. Instead, Nail draws upon his career frustrations and rocky romantic history to create a song collection of unusual soulfulness. The Missouri-born singer writes and selects tunes that avoid the familiar celebrations of drunken honky-tonk nights and blissful family life. Instead, he gravitates towards troubled love songs (“Red Light,” the title tune), nostalgic small-town sketches (“Summer Job Days,” “Turning Home”), and wistful road numbers (“Again”). His clear, slightly ache-inflected vocals take on a blues tinge, especially for the elegiac “Mississippi” (co-written by Allman Brothers keyboardist Chuck Leavell), and he displays some Rodney Crowell-like drive on “This Time Around.” The standout track is “Missouri,” a gracefully devastating account of failure and loss. Nail doesn’t mind telling stories on himself — it’s a source of his artistic strength. By keeping things real and a little painful, he makes I’m About to Come Alive into an unexpected triumph.