Nick Shoulders will perform Saturday, July 26.

Growing up in the shadow of the Ozarks, songwriter Nick Shoulders had room to yodel and learn whistling bird calls while appreciating his grampa’s gospel and country music. A stint in punk band Thunderlizards was a time-tested rebellion against these old-fashioned moments, until Shoulders realized that punk didn’t invent hostility to oppression, but hijacked it from folk. He began releasing solo music in 2018; the concise title of his song “Rather Low” captured the mood of the pandemic world, rapidly earning millions of online listens.

Shoulders’ songs shuffle along in uncomplicated wonder, letting loose guitar twang with ample space for his luscious, unfettered voice like something blasting from old school outlaw radio while crossing county lines in faded decades. The songs beg listeners to lean into the question, “What’s lurking under these pretty notes?” Plenty, it turns out, based on Shoulders’ astute observations of nations brushing off people based on their accents, then co-opting phony Southern accents for musical profiteering. Going deeper, he asks questions like “Do you love freedom, or security and dreams? Is life worth living if there’s lead in the last stream?”

This is not your grampa’s conventional, doctrine-toting country music, for while the sound may be retro, the songs offer a side-eyed glance at America’s cumbersome axioms while casting a long gaze towards a better future for all.

- Mary-Lynn Wardle