AT News: The Message, the Medium, the Style
Despite the ever-changing advancements in technology, storytelling is here to stay.
The Message, the Medium, the Style
I’m old enough to remember the advent of the “blogging age” (during the mid-1990s), which promised to democratize the publishing of content and information through ubiquitous and decentralized technology.
The venture capital machine sold everyone on radically lower barriers to entry, hyper-local “citizen journalism,” the explosion of niche content (sub-genres), social connection (“commenting”) and a vast interconnected web of SEO and backlinks (the “Blogosphere”). Silicon Valley spun up LiveJournal (1999), Blogger (1999) and fifty other platforms, which eventually morphed into WordPress (2003), TypePad (2003) and Tumblr (2007) and those eventually morphed into the age of “micro-blogging,” Facebook, Twitter and the current social media nightmare we now inhabit.
The technology bet was that niche, basement blogger types could take on the legacy brands: go deep, become an expert, start a fly-fishing blog, like MoldyChum or Trout Underground, plug in some paid Google ads and the world is yours. I guess it didn’t turn out that way…?
The blogs were eventually paved over by endless, handheld micro-feeds (why write 800 words on a personal website when you could drop a 140-character update on your phone?), unlimited reach, affiliate link farming, tech conglomeration and now the full transformation to short-form video. What was left for the basement blogger? Not much, as the legacy media brands learned fast and leaned into full-scale digital integration, threw up paywalls and started to flex their content and digital reach. (As of 2026, the New York Times has roughly 20-to-30 million pages indexed by Google. If you don’t find this astounding, you should.)
But just when you thought the deep-dive content creator had gone the way of cane poles, wicker creels and the dodo, enter Substack, the new-ish newsletter/longform content platform, which has begun to claw back (for writers) many of social media’s most (intentionally) ignored benefits: data ownership (you own your audience, instead of renting it), thoughtful (non-algorithmic) content delivery (email, web and an app), direct monetization through subscriptions (paywalls) and a step back in time to deeper reader engagement and loyalty. The writer and their audience actually matter again, or maybe they never went away.
What we do know is that storytelling, despite the ever-changing advancements in technology, is here to stay, based on its enduring proximity to the human experience. Creating and telling stories are hardwired into our shared identity. Do we care about some mediums (words, audio or imagery) more than others? Possibly, but the style, execution and (unique) voice of the creator matters as much as it ever has. Great writers, reporters and auteurs have an uncanny ability to move, inspire and command our attention in an endless blizzard of digital noise.
When it’s done well, it moves (any) media needle; when it’s mailed-in, it performs as you would expect: poorly.
And who are the arbiters of “great content”–that’s another write-up entirely, but consumers are clearly getting much more adept at sussing out the garbage. (From Gallup: seven in ten U.S. adults now say they have “not very much” confidence (36%) or “none at all” (34%) in mass media.)
Dan Coe at The Brand Report recently wrote about the high-end value of Huckerry’s DIRT YouTube series and what that could be telling us about the future of video content for both creators and brands.
“The most important thing about Huckberry’s model isn’t Huckberry. It’s the economic logic underneath it.
Customer acquisition costs on paid social are rising across the industry. Every outdoor brand–from Hoka to Arc’teryx to On–is feeling the same pressure. The brands that grew fastest on digital ads are the ones most exposed to rising costs on those platforms.
Huckberry’s answer–build entertainment people actually want to watch, wire it to your commerce engine, and own the audience relationship–is replicable in theory. In practice, it requires something most brands aren’t set up to deliver: content people actually want to watch. Not product videos with a cinematic filter. Not brand manifestos over drone footage. Shows that people choose to watch on their television on a Friday night.”
It’s a pretty high bar to clear–“content people actually want to watch”–but this is the north star for any brand, video creator or writer, hoping to connect with outdoor and fly-fishing consumers in today’s hyper-saturated media landscape.
I believe David Ogilvy, the “Father of Advertising,” once said, “Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.” (Confessions of an Advertising Man.)
Everyone on the content side of the fly-fishing house should pin this quote and underline it. More grip-and-grins or detached, lifeless aerials? Not only do the consumers not care, they’re probably punishing you for contributing to the lowest common denominator.
If I was a brand manager today, spinning up a YouTube channel, the first thing I’d do is enroll my AV director in a reputable film school, so they’d be forced to ditch the gimbal and drone for a fully manual SLR, tripod and chance to answer the one meaningful question still left in media: “Why is the camera there?” – Andrew Steketee
If You Love Trout Fishing, Take Up Bass Fishing
It’s no secret that 75% of the products sold in fly fishing are trout-centric. Most of the fly rods sold in America are 9-foot 5-weights. By a wide margin. Still. Despite efforts to branch out in different directions and different species, the fly world spins on an axis of trout.
But this year promises to challenge that, at least in the West.
With weak snowpack in many places, the outlook is pretty bleak. We’re expecting record low flows, fires, and if recent history is any indication, warm temperatures will proliferate and make rivers too warm to responsibly fish for trout.
Recent News
Colorado’s Antero Reservoir to be drained for an “emergency fish salvage,” authorized as Denver Water drains Colorado reservoir. “The move is part of Denver Water’s drought response. The utility said Antero Reservoir has the highest ratio of evaporation to storage of any of Denver Water’s reservoirs. Moving the water to Cheesman Reservoir, which is near Sedalia, will prevent about 5,000 acre-feet of water (about 25% of the reservoir’s storage capacity) from evaporating. Denver Water said one acre-foot of water equals the annual water use of about three to four single-family households a year. The utility said in a standard year, the water lost to evaporation is recovered by the next runoff season. Because of the low snowpack levels this winter, the water lost this year would not have been recovered.” More on Antero’s demise from Hatch: Drought Claims a Colorado Trophy Trout Lake. “Once all the fish have been harvested or relocated, Denver Water says, the reservoir site will close, and no summer access will be granted. As for when Antero might fill again? Keep an eye on the weather. ‘Drought conditions will determine when the reservoir can be refilled,’ a Denver Water news release reads.”
New media ROI: Yoon Kim of Outdoor Media Summit sits down with Outdoor Sportswire to discuss the 10th anniversary of OMS and ever-evolving media trends. “Media [brands] should walk out of the event knowing how to grow their publications and/or make more money. There are coaches and consultants that offer this kind of thing, but no other event in the outdoor industry is offering that. Our education is a huge loss leader for us; it’s very expensive and time consuming to get right. But that’s how we attract the caliber of media we do. Most high profile editors don’t have the patience to wander around aimlessly at a trade show, or sit in product meetings for days on end…”
On AI and original (written) output from the WSJ: Writers Are Going to Extremes to Prove They Didn’t Use AI ($). “Chicago-based Sean Chou, 54, co-founder of multiple tech startups including an AI company last year, uses artificial intelligence to draft LinkedIn posts. But he said he’ll replace em dashes with two smaller dashes, hoping they’ll look more handmade. ‘It’s like my artisanal craftsmanship,’ Chou said. He tries to rein in overtly bold statements, too. ‘[Large language models] get their content from TED Talk transcripts and Reddit opinions, so it has a self-selection bias there, it tends to sound very confident,’ he said. Andy O’Bryan, who co-founded an online group for entrepreneurs interested in AI, said he’s seen more people trying to scuff up AI-generated prose with typos or run-on sentences…” If readers can’t determine if there’s a human behind your media brand’s writing, you have a writer and/or editorial authority problem, not an AI enablement problem. There isn’t a single case in three years where Flylab has told a contributor to “act more human.” Honestly, the impulse feels utterly fake and manufactured, even more so than AI. Have your standards, let your writers write and stand behind their original voices–two or three sentences should be enough to know the output is real versus machined.
The downstream consequences for compute. The amount of environmental pressure data centers are putting on local resources, from American Rivers. Rivers and Data Centers: What’s at Stake for Water Supply, Water Quality, and Energy. “Data centers generate tremendous heat through operation. And to operate reliably, they must be cooled. While cooling methods vary by facility, they consistently rely on water. A single large data center can consume up to five million gallons of water per day–the same daily water use as more than 15,000 homes. To run the network of computing equipment, data centers require tremendous amounts of electricity. And to meet increased electricity demands, power plants use water, creating added stress on rivers. Federal estimates show that electricity use by data centers has already more than tripled since 2014 and is projected to rise sharply again by 2028. In some regions, the projected electricity demand growth is expected to come almost entirely from data centers. To maintain operations during power disruptions, data centers often rely on on-site backup generators powered by diesel or natural gas, which contribute to local air pollution.”
Warm winter and economic impacts in the Rockies. From Vail Resorts and CEO Rob Katz, skier visits to the Rockies declined 25% in one of the most challenging winters in the Western U.S. in history. “‘As we previously highlighted heading into March, these dynamics increased variability and resulted in visitation declines for both destination and local guests with the largest impact in the Rockies, where visitation declined 25%,’ Katz said. Resort-reported EBITDA for fiscal 2026 is now expected to be around the low end of $745 million to $775 million, which was issued in March.”
How Specialty Retailers Are Using AI to Boost Margins. “When it comes to analyzing sales numbers and making buying decisions, the [outdoor industry] panel agreed that artificial intelligence is a massive asset. [Josh] Hansen pulls raw reporting data out of his point-of-sale system and feeds it into ChatGPT. The tool quickly generates executive summaries detailing top growth brands, struggling categories, and current margins. It highlights trends that might otherwise go unnoticed during a busy work week. [Mark] Moffett takes a similar approach using Shopify’s built-in AI assistant, Sidekick. While at trade shows placing seasonal orders, he asks the software to calculate the exact sell-through rates of specific items. During one session, the tool revealed that large sizes of a popular shirt were selling out rapidly, indicating a missed sales opportunity. Armed with that data, his buying team adjusted their sizing scales immediately.”
More on the AI onslaught from Kyle Frost over at Here & There: The things you can’t vibe-code. “It’s not just hobbyists and vibe coding. Engineers at your favorite brand are running coding agents every day. Marketing leads are drafting subject lines and ad copy. Brand teams are running research. Enthusiasts are shipping apps over a weekend. Operations teams are building one-off internal tools that a year ago would have sat in a backlog for a year. RunSignup, the race registration platform, built out an entire vibe-coding webinar series for race directors, teaching them to build custom apps with RunSignup’s public API. Now, most of these little apps will fail as businesses, because statistically, most businesses fail. But it’s also because making something and posting it on social media is not the hard part of building a product. Distribution is hard. Scaling and sustaining infrastructure is hard. Customer support is hard. Security and privacy are hard. Keeping the lights on past an initial wave of novelty is hard. Many of the ‘problems’ people are breathlessly solving are things the community has magnified far beyond the actual addressable market.”
The effects of AI on outdoor PR: “I appreciated the article on AI and writing articles. It’s so hard to find the right balance on the editorial side, for sure. Mundane, repetitive tasks and research–a big yes from me. Writing the actual articles–no go. But I have found it very useful for editorial calendar ideation and SEO, so there’s that. A necessary evil. On the PR side, this has become a true nightmare–there aren’t even words to describe how many BS articles by non-humans are out there acting like humans these days, and really skewing our earned coverage reports. When there are 1000 mentions of a product and 70% of them are picked up by bots and put on BS websites, with no real human to connect with, that skews our PR efforts, because it looks like we’re only gaining 30% earned media coverage–but the reality is completely different. This is the age we live in…” Jen Ripple, Group PR Director, Gunpowder.
Evolve (with media and technology) or die. Orvis is reframing their brand narrative after layoffs, restructuring and the death of their paper catalog: “There were two things that spurred the catalogs’ obituary. First, the interaction with the catalog changed, and it changed dramatically. What once was a ‘personal touchpoint’ with customers–who would get the catalog in the mail, pour a tumbler of brown liquor and spend an hour flipping through the pages in search of their next big purchase–became more of an afterthought. Much of the same information was (and still is) available on the company’s website. Second, the cost of producing a catalog that often spanned more than 100 pages, increased 40 percent over a four-year span, [Simon] Perkins said. ‘It was no longer a tenable way to connect with the customers…’”
The Wild Steelhead Coalition (WSC) has launched a Substack called The Adipose. From Brian Bennett who serves as the Communications Manager, “The Wild Steelhead Coalition (WSC), the organization that has been doing the unglamorous, unsexy work of keeping wild steelhead from becoming a historical footnote, has launched a Substack. It’s called The Adipose, named for the small, vestigial fin that hatchery programs clip to mark their fish and that wild steelhead still carry, intact. If you know what an adipose fin is, you already understand why that name is perfect. If you don’t know what an adipose fin is, this is your sign to subscribe and begin your education.”
Andrew Luter makes the case that leaning into the long, uncomfortable learning curve (being “humblingly bad at something”) will make you a better athlete, investor, founder and permit fisherman: The outdoor industry needs to tell the truth about the middle. “We are good at celebrating the first attempt and the eventual mastery. What we skip is the long middle–the part that looks like failure from the outside and is actually just the work. The brands that build real community hold space for that middle. They don’t only sell the summit. They sell the process of getting there, including the parts that aren’t photogenic. That honesty is what turns customers into believers.”
Do your market research. From AFFTA: How Affiliate Marketing Cuts the Local Shop Out of the Deal. “Suddenly, media outlets realized they could make money not just from ads, but from every sale their content generated. If a reader clicks on a link in an article and buys a product, the outlet earns a commission. On the surface, it’s a smart, modern way for journalism to sustain itself. But buried in the mechanics is a harsh truth for specialty retailers: virtually every affiliate program sends customers straight to the brand’s direct-to-consumer site.” This, honestly, is completely misinformed–we send the vast majority of our Flylab affiliate traffic to fly shops. And this is a purposeful decision. The problem isn’t the DTC brands selling direct to consumers or being ‘further ahead’ in affiliate platform integration; it’s the fly shops’ general reluctance to engage with the same available affiliate platforms: AvantLink, Impact etc. Every brand is integrated with some form of affiliate marketing in 2026; if they’re not, that should tell you something about their marketing efforts. Why aren’t most of the fly shops flowing in affiliate traffic from media brands? They aren’t integrated.
Promoters of the Virginia Fly Fishing & Wine Festival, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2026, are proud to announce the launch of the Tennessee Fly Fishing & Whiskey Festival. This one-of-a-kind event will be held on Friday, January 15, and Saturday, January 16, 2027, at the Farm Bureau Expo Center in Lebanon, Tennessee. The festival will feature a roster of renowned speakers and authors, including Kelly Galloup, Pat Dorsey, Joe Mahler, Kevin Howell, Patrick Fulkrod, Ian and Charity Rutter, Kim Ranalla, Jessica Dial, Beau Beasley, Steve Nix and Captain Gary Dubiel. Fly tyers Allen Rupp and Steve Maldonado will also be attending.
Fly-fishing Media
Hunter Leavine interviews Captain Ben Whalley from the East Coast, and they talk about “guiding the coast of Maine, chasing striped bass and the harder parts of Ben’s story: addiction, sobriety, faith and rebuilding a life with honesty.” Hunter is finding a unique podcast swimlane with a focus on deeper, personal stories in an ecosystem of completely hackneyed, fly-fishing content. Solid work.
Mike Idell of General Sport Club writes about turkey hunting and steelheading, “Die-hard steelheaders don’t care about numbers, they want to catch it their way. They might get one grab for every 10,000 casts. So the idea of intentionally not hooking a fish that you’ve spent an entire season chasing, especially one that is strictly catch and release anyway, is a bit insane. He didn’t want to see the fish up close, didn’t even want to fight it. He just wanted to feel the grab. He was in the game far deeper than most. I would never do that, because I like actually catching fish. But I respect the guy. That is peak sportsman. Doing it for the love of the game, with so much respect for it that he just wants to get close enough to taste it, and then he’s ok letting it go. No photos, no glory. It almost doesn’t make sense, until you realize that it does–you’re just not on his level…”
Monte Burke on A River Runs Through It and Other Stories: The autobiographical novella, first published 50 years ago, arguably created a new type of guy: the literary fly fisherman. “A River Runs Through It turns 50 this month. In getting to its exalted place, the book had to navigate a tricky set of rapids. Though it sailed through them, a question lingers half a century later: Would a book like this, with its regional setting and its male and outdoorsy focus, face different challenges in today’s publishing world?” NYTs ($)
From Lindsay Kocka: Staying Close To The Water. “As anglers, we have a shared culture and language, and while it’s probably fair to say that we’d much prefer to be on the water as much as possible, there are so many other elements that are necessary and a part of the sport. These other pieces aren’t random add-ons. I’d actually argue that they’re much of what makes fly fishing so unique and all-encompassing. Across sport, this overarching idea is well understood. Athletes don’t just lose the ability to train or play when they’re injured, they risk losing their sense of self, their role, their purpose, and their place within something bigger than them.”
Let the storytelling do the work. Part two from The Brand Report on YouTube’s power as an outdoor marketing channel: Five Playbooks for Winning on YouTube. “YETI’s YouTube channel has around 140,000 subscribers [amend the number]. That’s a fraction of what a brand at its scale–$1.66 billion in 2024 revenue–might expect. But subscriber count misses the point entirely, because YETI isn’t playing the reach game. It’s playing the taste game. For the past decade, YETI has operated a series called YETI Presents–roughly a dozen short films per year, produced with the kind of care you’d expect from an independent studio, not a cooler company. The films follow fly fishermen, pit masters, surfers, ranchers, and mountain guides. The product is barely visible. The emotional register is quiet, specific, and human. These aren’t brand anthems. They’re portraits. This is the hardest model to measure and the hardest to replicate. It requires creative taste, institutional patience, and a willingness to let content exist without a conversion tag on every frame. YETI has roughly 150 ambassadors across fly fishing, mountaineering, surfing, ranching, and BBQ–but they’re storytelling subjects, not salespeople.”
Swedish filmmaker, Rolf Nylinder, with a new, fly-fishing diary: Spring Mix Deluxe. “I don’t know, maybe AI will take over the world and all the people that have spent their life doing important stuff will be useless. Who will be the winner in that world? Well, probably fly fishers and skateboarders…”
Gear Buzz
Hatch reviews Patagonia’s new River Salt II Wading Boots. “The new River Salt II Wading Boots are, like their predecessors, built from the ground up to be both freshwater- and saltwater-friendly. Unlike their predecessors, which were built by Portland-based Danner, the new iteration of the River Salt boots are built by Italian bootmaker Fitwell. Fitwell is a relatively small Italian company that has been hand-making some of the world’s best technical mountaineering boots for more than 4 decades. They also manufacture Patagonia’s excellent Forra Wading Boots.”
The Manic Tackle Project reviews the new GT Series from Scott Fly Rods. “The GT Series features a progressive-loading taper with a medium action. It’s lighter and more stable than the original G Series and feels noticeably crisper and more responsive than its predecessor, while still retaining that smooth, connected feel Scott is known for. The feel and feedback through the blank is unlike any rod I have fished before.”
From Skwala: Charlie Craven’s Thoughts on Simple versus Complicated Flies. “Sure, trout are dumb… except when they’re not. Your Tenkara friend who only fishes Spiders and Sawyer Nymphs chases blue lines for a reason, and it’s not just because no one wants to hang out with him anymore. Like his diatribes on composting, his fly boxes are boring. Complexity is part of what makes fly fishing (and fly tying) endlessly interesting, and having a variety of patterns offers practical benefits in certain situations.”
Knife News: The James Brand Founder Ryan Coulter Steps Away from the Company. “Since co-founding the brand, Coulter has played a pivotal role in shaping The James Brand’s identity–establishing its unique focus on minimalist design, premium materials, and a refined approach to everyday carry. His vision laid the groundwork for the company’s growth and enduring connection with a global community of EDC users.”
Learning by fixing: Ezra Klein interviews Stewart Brand (Maintenance of Everything: Part One, Whole Earth Catalog), maybe the “most influential philosopher of the internet,” about the importance of maintenance in a culture that prizes “novelty and disposability.” Brand’s argument is that maintenance isn’t a chore to be avoided, but a continuing conversation with the world and your tools (anglers are constantly maintaining fly rods and reels, cleaning fly lines, tying leaders, prepping flies etc.). This is the core difference between having a hobby and inhabiting a lifelong craft.
Boating News
Colorado water prices are weird right now. Showing that despite extreme scarcity, water prices across large parts of Colorado have actually dropped, even as prices continue climbing across much of the American West. Hyde Drift Boats teams up with River Guide Gear. Hyde just added River Guide Gear products to its collection of boat add-ons and accessories. And if you missed it, we recently sat down with River Guide Gear owner John O’Connor for a Small Craft Stories interview. Chesapeake Light Craft adds 10 new kits from Sam Devlin. Designer, builder, and one of the foremost practitioners of the stitch-and-glue art, Sam Devlin’s boats are practical, elegant and unmistakably unique. See the new lineup here. EMO Electric cuts pricing on ePropulsion motors and batteries. Luke from EMO says they can’t publish new pricing until Monday, May 4, but if you’re shopping for a specific motor or battery, shoot him an email. Most motor prices are dropping between $25 and $300 depending on the model, while Spirit 2 pricing remains unchanged. Accessories and small parts are seeing modest changes. 4Corners Riversports compares the Waka Skuxx versus the Jackson Antix 3.0. In their latest review, industry insider Dave Farkas breaks down specs, volume distribution, on-water performance and most importantly, which boat he’d choose. Wild Expeditions is for sale. Based in Bluff near Bears Ears National Monument and the San Juan River, Wild Expeditions is a well-established and highly reputable adventure tour company specializing in guided river trips, 4x4 tours, hiking and cultural expeditions through some of the most iconic landscapes in the country. A true turnkey operation–learn more here. And in “don’t dump sewage in rivers” news… the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a Clean Water Act citizen suit on behalf of the Flint Riverkeeper against the City of Griffin for allegedly discharging polluted wastewater and sewage into a tributary of the Flint River, putting downstream communities and waterways at risk. Here’s the nitty gritty.
Good reads in the world of boating:
The Restoration: “Two years ago, I took possession of a weathered 15-year-old wooden fishing dory from my friend Andy Toohey. ‘Took possession,’ because I didn’t buy it, and he didn’t want it. He let me have that boat, but only after I had promised that I would fully restore it, and I wouldn’t bring it back, whether I lived up to promise number one or not.”
Six Tips to Ensure a Fun First Float of the Year: “Hard boat owners–do you have a spare drain plug or plugs? My dory has midships drain plugs and halfway through last year, I started noticing an inch, then an inch-and-a-half of water standing in the floor of the boat. I checked the plug tightness and bilged, but the water kept returning. At first, I thought I had a leak in the hull, but that wasn’t the case. The rubber for the drain plugs had dry-rotted and was slowly letting water in.”
Boat Trailer Lights: “Recently, while hooking up one of my boats, none of the lights decided they wanted to work: no brakes, no blinker, nothing was functional. (This same trailer worked flawlessly two days earlier.) I scratched my head for a moment and immediately found the ground wire–sure enough, it had become disconnected from the trailer itself. Problem solved.”
Fly-fishing Jobs
Fishing Guide: Denver Charter Fishing is looking for a “personable, experienced Outfitter Guide to lead clients on unforgettable days on the water. This is not your typical wade-and-row guide job–our trips take place on comfortable, motorized pontoon boats, offering a relaxed and versatile outdoor experience. As a guide, you’ll host businesses, families, birthday parties and small groups looking to enjoy fishing, wildlife viewing, swimming, and scenic cruising with stunning Front Range Mountain views. If you enjoy working with people as much as you enjoy being on the water, this role is a great fit.” Check out the listing at FFJs.
Music
Spotify served me Katie Crutchfield’s Six O’Clock News this week, a remake of Kathleen Edwards’ 2002 version from her debut album Failer, and I was reminded of an old 2015 Henry Rollins quote from LA Weekly: “I have just hit some very rockin’ paydirt.” Crutchfield, who fronts the immovable Waxahatchee, has been on a musical tear lately (maybe it’s her sobriety), and anyone with ears should be thankful. If you missed 2024’s Tigers Blood, it’s worth revisiting before any summer road trips. This collaboration with MJ Lenderman can still make you believe in music. Songs worth listening to: 3 Sisters, Right Back to It, Burns Out at Midnight, Bored, Lone Star Lake, Crimes of the Heart, Crowbar. The Pitchfork write-up, “Tigers Blood continues the work of clearing room for this new, 8-foot-tall version of Crutchfield. Saint Cloud producer Brad Cook is back, surrounding each instrument with a wooly ball of room tone as substantial as the felt pads of a piano. Crutchfield’s character from Saint Cloud returns, as well, a complicated, warmly combative woman bristling at specific grievances. One of the most indelible hooks on Saint Cloud came from a song called ‘Hell,’ in which Crutchfield sang, ‘I’ll put you through hell.’ Her voice was rueful and affectionate, convincing you both that she did exactly as she said and that for whoever her target was, it was worth it. Joining her this time, on guitars and backup vocals, is the Asheville singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman, whom Crutchfield first invited to contribute to lead single ‘Right Back to It’ and then asked to stay for the duration. You can hear why. Over Phil Cook’s banjo on ‘Right Back to It,’ Lenderman and Crutchfield sound like their own version of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, lifelong musical partners instead of first-time collaborators.” – Andrew Steketee
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