SCOTTY HASTING - Town Like Mine - Black River Entertainment

Layering the foundations of his path with a willingness to tackle conflicting emotions on powerful songs such as “How Do You Choose,” while holding tightly to the ideals of American pride on “I’m America” and “Red, White and Blue,” Army veteran Scotty Hasting is having a banner year that’s found perfect balance in who is as a songwriter and performer with who he is outside of the spotlight.

Having also showcased his addictively catchy side with the play loudly on repeat essence of “Whiskey in the Bottle,” he now returns with “Town Like Mine,” a blue-collar anthem that arrives just in time to make its way to playlists for a college football Saturday as well as a bonfire country night.

An irresistible clap along drive within its rhythm that immediately gets you mud stomping your boots, he opens hot on the chorus:

“If you drink Jack straight to a George Strait song

If you work and go to church with the same boots on

If it’s y’all come back on a welcome sign

Yeah, you’ve got to be from a town like mine”

Giving way then to a rock edged chunkiness that broods its way through each of the verses, Hasting accelerates your hometown heartbeat as he tallies a checklist that points directionally at small-town U.S.A., using vivid descriptives to raise one up to the similarities that connect where he’s from into a picture of where you were raised.

“If you got a little country in the way you talk.”

“If there’s dirt on your ride cause there’s dirt on your road.”

“If there’s money in the bank cause there’s rain in the field.”

“If you ain’t scared of work til your skin’s sunburnt cause you don’t get nothing that you don’t earn.”

Teetering the edges of his sound on the attractiveness of modern country with an unapologetic strike of alternative induced rock, the guitars shred in all the right spaces to mesmerize your senses while understanding the perfect moments to slide into accompaniment and allow the crisply raw extensions of Hasting’s voice to hold the lyrics.

“Town Like Mine” is the type of song that gets the party revved as it cranks the speakers to 11, but like the aforementioned “Whiskey in a Bottle,” it also continues to provide the firm definition as to why Scotty Hasting is the type of guy you want to invite to your get together.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)