Album Review: Luke Combs, The Way I Am

After five charting albums, Luke Combs knows the country aesthetic like the back of his guitar-calloused hand—so what's his next move? Enter The Way I Am, a mammoth 22-track LP whose slick production belies its down-to-earth thoughtfulness.

The blockbuster album is dripping in Americana references: there are stereotypical bar scenes and dusty pickup trucks, nods to American heroes John Wayne and Dale Earnhardt, and plenty of swigs of whiskey to go around. Throughout its over-an-hour runtime, Combs keeps his feet on the ground, imparting his working-class values and sentimentality along his merry way.

Combs is no stranger to a hit (see: his 2023 cover of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ boasting nearly a billion Spotify streams), and The Way I Am is chock-full of them. Rowdy, rock-infused bangers like ‘Back In The Saddle’ and ‘My Kinda Saturday Night’ will certainly be crowd-pleasers at Combs’ sold-out shows at Slane Castle this July.

Every track is radio-ready, which makes individual songs perfect for a quick jam, but less so for listening to the album straight through. It seems like Combs has played roulette with his sequencing: there are a few too many ballads in a row, with breakup tearjerkers neighbouring gooey love songs, and the word ‘jukebox’ features prominently in the choruses of two songs only three tracks apart. Still, in our age of fragmented attention spans, who’s consuming a 72-minute LP all at once? The album’s benevolent overwhelm is welcome amidst the brevity that’s taken over the charts since the emergence of TikTok.

The Way I Am excels when it ditches the cliches and speaks to Combs’ real life. In ‘Ever Mine (featuring Alison Krauss)’, he takes a moment away from cowboy nostalgia and instead gives airtime to "the grips of these troubled times." He croons, "This is my prayer, that our daughter and our sons / wrap their arms around each other and never around a gun." It’s a candid moment in an already-sweet song about love and family, made all the sweeter with the addition of some light fiddle breaks. Krauss’s gorgeous harmonies don’t hurt, either.

Throughout the album, Combs poses as an everyman—and perhaps also every man: he’s a husband-to-be at the altar, a jilted ex, a new father, an inmate behind bars. His soulful, twangy vocals lend themselves well to each of these roles. By the album’s quiet end, we have not only an idea of the way Combs is but the way he could be in a number of alternate universes. One thing’s for sure: no matter who he is, he’s got a whole lot of heart and a whole lot of talent. The country music zeitgeist is in safe hands.

7.5/10