Album Review: Will Hoge 'Small Town Dreams'

Will Hoge continues his signature “rock and roll and country soul” with an insightful and affirmative look into small towns and dreams in his tenth full length record, Small Town Dreams. The album, produced by Marshall Altman, contains eleven tracks, including his current single “Middle of America,” that are well told, thoughtful stories, personal yet identifiable and brought to life by Hoge's signature vocals that paint pictures with believability and soul. 

Things kick off with “Growing Up Around Here” in which he reflects upon where he grew up and makes the realization that typically only comes with age that it wasn’t such a bad place as his younger self might have thought. “I spent seventeen years trying to find a way out/Took a whole lot of miles to know what I know now/I’m kinda proud of growing up around here.”

The themes of small towns, adjusting dreams and finding happiness where you are permeate throughout numerous tracks. The whispered “1,2,3” and the gentle acoustic guitar strumming of “Little Bitty Dreams” is a moving celebration of love and family. The song reminds us that the dreams of youth may not work out the way you originally planned, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t work out the way they were supposed to…and for the better. “’Cause I met you and then I knew that my big dreams were done and I’d settle down in the same small town and swear you were the one/Some might call it giving up, but it don’t feel that way to me/I think it’s just the two of us and our little bitty dreams.”

Whether you’re just beginning as a couple, or have been together for years, the piano laced “Just Up The Road,” targets following those dreams with the one you love while filling the heart with a serenity. “Let’s chase these white lines ‘til we find that promise we’ve never known/Let’s take that fast lane all the way girl/Heavens just up the road……There’s place called forever and we can go there together/We both want something better.”

Rockin’ and edgy, “Guitar Or A Gun” explores a man’s first decision: something that will last forever or something that is for fun, although which one is which is difficult to discern. “One can feed family and one’ll end ya in jail and he seemed to know which one was which me I couldn’t tell.” “Desperate Times,” co-written with Adam Hood, is a swaggering Cajun flavored tune (hand claps!!) about living in times that may test us, but coming out stronger, a survivor. Things shift heavier emotionally in “They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To,” an ode to his “solid as the gospel truth” father whom he wants to live up to and emulate. “As I get older I’m standing on your shoulders trying to be just like you/But they don’t make ‘em like they used to.” 

The triad of “Better Than You,” “All I Want Is Us Tonight” and “The Last Thing I Needed” all center on relationships. The first focuses on dealing with the dissolution while the second, with it’s call and response in the vocals, is more about an immediate kind of love, being caught up in the moment and “making another memory we’ll never forget.” The third, (co-written with Chris Stapelton) bluesy and romantic, is about finding your beginning, your lover, and your best friend…even though she may have been “the last thing I needed.”

The album closes with the rollicking, sure to be crowd pleaser, “’Til I Do It Again.” Describing a Saturday night that often spills into Sunday; with good intentions not do to it again, he cant however avoid that “call of the whiskey and wine” that “make a fool of me every damn time.” 

We’ll be waiting for him to do it again, in the meantime Hoge has given us a treasure of an album full of intelligent songs brimming with positivity, insight and soul.

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