album review: 'cast iron pansexual' by adeem the artist

This is a project that’s been on my docket for longer than I would have preferred.

And no, I didn’t go Bandcamp diving for this project… but one of my Patrons clearly did, and the more I learned about Adeem The Artist, the more that made a certain amount of sense. Because to be blunt, there’s no short supply of primarily acoustic, indie country folk singer-songwriters that crop up on Bandcamp, and most of them don’t really go far enough to vary the formula. It’s one reason I struggle a lot with the ones that get the marketing department to trigger automatic Pitchfork approval - sure, most of it is often very pretty and reasonably well-arranged and very tasteful… but that rarely makes for interesting or gripping songs longer-term, at least in a lot of my experience.

Maybe that was the reason I was reticent about Adeem The Artist for as long as I was, who seemed like the sort of Bandcamp act who was destined to build a cult following - especially as most of their catalog is not on streaming services - but maybe not get the same crossover attention. A Carolina singer-songwriter, they’ve been active throughout the 2010s, with a very stripped back approach to their sound in order to draw more attention to some pretty deft poetry. They’ve cited influences from John Prine and John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats which I could definitely hear, but I also heard a smattering of Steven Page as well, which was definitely intriguing enough to explore their textured sense of detail, whimsy, and angst. Now I will say the back catalog is pretty damn spotty - the stripped back presentation often leaves many of the songs to live or die on writing and delivery, and it took Adeem The Artist some time to iron out the kinks, with a little less oversinging and a little more distinctive detail, plus this is the sort of presentation that doesn’t flatter longer albums.

But fine, this is their newest project, which I finally got to in catching up with things on my schedule. I was planning on covering this through On The Pulse, which for an indie, acoustic singer-songwriter album is the sort of placement that makes all the sense in the world… so why am I choosing to give this a solo review?

Well, I’ll say it plainly: even beyond the fact this is a pretty slow year for country, this might be some of the best material I’ve heard all year. The Patron who requested this compared Adeem The Artist a bit to Jason Eady in terms of writing prowess and presentation, and while I don’t quite think that’s accurate when it comes to delivery and themes, in terms of sheer quality this album absolutely belongs in that conversation, even if I think where Eady is a firmer traditionalist, Adeem The Artist is drawing from an even older well in terms of song structure and presentation and proving that they can make it relevant in the modern day, which is a testament to legit talent that has reached a real point of refinement… and along the way they made one of the best albums of the year.

Now there will be some cynics who say that the critical attention that’s been recently given to Adeem The Artist has more to do with “identity politics” than actual quality, and I’m going to start by vigorously quashing that - because thematically, Adeem The Artist coming to grips with and understanding their gender and sexuality is a major focal point of the album. It doesn’t remotely feel like a gimmick or disingenuous or to play for attention, mostly because there’s a sense of deep, lingering pain for which they’re still grappling - as they said on the opening song, they never ‘came out’ to friends and family because in a deeply religious rural environment, it wasn’t safe for someone of their age growing up. There are parallels that can be sketched to Katie Pruitt’s excellent debut Expectations last year, especially in bucking against religion and intolerant family units, but you can tell Adeem The Artist’s well of anger runs deeper - they’re looking to confront the industry and exposed prejudices of country, not so much aiming to fit within it, and while there are prettier moments, there’s a lot more rougher detail, making the closer parallel probably Jaime Wyatt’s Neon Cross, especially in how they incorporate traditional country progressions in order to introduce stridently queer themes and subvert them.

But here’s the thing: I’d argue subversion is the wrong word entirely if you know the history of where country has stood, not the industry mechanisms that churn out so much interchangeable nonsense - and Adeem The Artist knows their country. ‘Going To Heaven’ might be close to an interlude, but it’s got so much traditional country flavour in the prominent banjo and the wry acknowledgement that despite their sins they might be able to sneak into heaven after all - this is not that far removed from something you’d hear out of the 50s, except Adeem The Artist is pansexual and non-binary. And they’ll expand on these themes a fair bit - ‘Fervent For The Hunger’ is abstract but highlights their exploration of gender and sexuality to discover who they are in the eyes of any higher power, and ‘Live Forever’ is not far removed from many a song about art outlasting the artist, although in this case it’s in the backdrop of a church that would rather persecute them than help the community. And thus who the hell is anyone to invalidate their identity, especially when so many self-proclaimed ‘outlaws’ have cut similar material and it has rung hollow? The framing might be different but the core themes still resonate, and what I really like is that if you can vibe with the music and presentation, with Adeem The Artist’s strident but better-balanced delivery and instrumentals not far removed from any other acoustic singer-songwriter, if you’re so bothered by the lyrical detail that might say more about you than anyone else. The unrequited love on ‘Apartment’ and ‘Honeysuckle Hipbilly Homo-erotica’, the dive bar observations of ‘Womyn Who Bartend’, and the twangy cookout vibe of the title track that has its own list structure, just very different items on its list, including Woody Guthrie which does plenty to highlight the worker’s roots of country than any mainstream placation.

And thus it takes us to the two songs I think anchor this album effectively, the first which has gotten Adeem The Artist a lot of publicity, the other one not as much. The first is ‘I Wish You Would’ve Been A Cowboy’, which is a direct response to how Nashville’s promotion of a specific chart success story left lingering scars for a queer kid who idolized him… and that artist in question is Toby Keith. Now if you’ve seen my review of the last Chicks album, you might remember that I’ve got a lot of messy and complicated opinions about Toby Keith as a whole, especially in how self-contained his operation was compared to the Nashville machine, and how his albums revealed a more interesting artist than his hits ever allowed. And here’s the thing: Adeem The Artist knows that, and as such they’re even more pissed off in how Keith’s most jingoistic and appropriative songs were made hits, making a broad mockery of what the American South is and could be - you can tell it’s a song with the detail of someone who was a conflicted fan for a long time and knows the industry is as much of a culprit in this, but damn it stings regardless. And that hits on a gut level - hell, if you want my parallel go look up my review of Eminem’s Kamikaze - but the song that really convinced me this had to be a solo review comes by the very end, ‘Reclaim My Name’. I’ve mostly skirted around conversations of production thus far, but I do want to emphasize that for a self-produced album the instrumentals are extremely well-balanced and there’s some great subtle details - the Garth Brooks-esque minor progressions and synth embellishments on ‘Apartment’, the spacious electric pickup on ‘Live Forever’, how ‘I Wish You’d Have Been A Cowboy’ has the warmth and rollicking polish and even a light patter of drums with a chord structure that echoes Keith’s own ‘Should’ve Been A Cowboy’ - but ‘Reclaim Your Name’ is something else altogether. The electric guitars warp as what sounds like a ramshackle device whirs as the mix picks up dream country space, as Adeem The Artist muses through painful old memories as they wish that machine would let them go back in time and convert all those old shameful memories into celebration, now that they have a firmer idea who they are… and as the final hook picks up with that terrific acoustic melody and the machine getting louder… it cuts off suddenly and the final acoustic chords ring. You can’t go back, but you can be who are you here and now, and that’s more than enough.

… I know even to this day there’s a lot of younger folks who say they can’t get into country, especially the stuff with a traditionalist bent - it’s why while I recommend Jason Eady forever, I get why so many struggle to take it in. I recommend you show Adeem The Artist to all of those folks - this is writing that’s just as poetic and measured, with so many great points of subtlety to the production and presentation, but with content that knows themselves and feels modern, witty, remarkably unpretentious, legit romantic, and passionate in so many ways. It’s less than a half hour, it has some of the best songs of this year thus far, and it’s just as country as anything Nashville or Texas shovels out, if not moreso. 9/10, this is special and will be overlooked or not heard by too many people - you should hear it.