Cigarette Tricks: What to Download Tuesday: Todd Snider

I'm recommending Todd Snider's Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables as the record to get your hands on this Tuesday. It's Snider's 12th studio album since 1994, and it's easily his best record since East Nashville Skyline (2004), which was easily the best country-folk record of the aughts. Agnostic Hymns... has all of the lyrical/storytelling brilliance of earlier Snider records, though here the subject matter is largely focused on issues of working class angst. Songs like "New York Banker," "In Between Jobs," and "How Soon to Tell" offer little by way of redemption for current economic struggles, but the songwriting somehow retains Snider's signature wry sense of humor. "Good things happen to bad people" is the cold refrain for those who have lost their retirement funds to a crooked banker in "New York Banker" and "In Between Jobs" has the poverty stricken narrator wonder what's keeping him from killing his well-to-do neighbor and "taking his shit." Indeed, what separates this record from other works that tread similar grounds -- say, for instance, Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball, also out today -- is how Snider never preaches about issues of poverty, nor does he color them in black-and-white terms. Instead he uses wit and scenes of great imagination, sorrow, humor and tragedy to help bring understanding and perspective to the lives that he sings about -- an approach that has prompted one writer to refer to Snider as a "folk-singer redux of The Wire." And even when he is simply covering Jimmy Buffett, as he does on his excellent take on "West Nashville Grand Ballroom Gown," or re-envisioning Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' relationship as a love relationship, as he does on "Brenda" (yes, apparently he has read Life), Snider remains a raconteur of the highest degree -- a guy, like John Prine before him, that you want to just sit and spend time with because he's likeable and knows how to spin a yarn.

In addition to the lyrical content of the album, the production on Agnostic Hymns... is as good as any record in Snider's catalog. It has a loose, unpolished feel that benefits Snider's ramblin', almost spoken word delivery. And there is also a female counterpart to Snider's voice -- something previous records have lacked -- with Amanda Shire providing backing vocals on almost all the album's tracks. Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables: it's not only a great album, but in a week of unbelievable new release riches -- there are a few "Best-of-the-Year" contenders in this week's cohort for sure -- it is my record of the week. See the full list of my new release recommendations after the jump.

Todd Snider, Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables