At one time, country was best known for its exposed emotional nerve endings—simple songs presenting anguish and ecstasy in harrowing high definition—and while things change, one new artist keeps the tradition alive—just with a raw new sound.
With his full-length album debut, River House Artists/Warner Music Nashville’s Austin Snell gets under the skin of life’s most visceral moments, proving he – and the country itself – is Still Bleeding.
“We call it Still Bleeding because that could mean a lot of different things – just like this album,” Snell explains. “If you say something is still bleeding, that could definitely be a bad thing – but I choose to look at it differently. If I’m still bleeding, it means I’m alive.”
Fusing hard-rocking sonic aggression with the deep-feeling confessions of a country troubadour, Snell’s striking full-length debut comes with a wave of early excitement. Just two years after arriving in Music City, the emerging “grunge country” hitmaker boasts 235+ million global career streams and a fanatical fanbase, matching digital hits with a spot on Jason Aldean’s 2024 Highway Desperado tour. It’s his ability to capture flashes of emotional lightning driving the trend – and the warm metallic buzz of his forward-looking rip-saw vocal – but the songs come largely from Snell’s past.
Born in Georgia and a veteran of the U.S. Airforce, hard rock and country radio formed the bedrock of Snell’s musical education, with artists like Nickelback and Alan Jackson in heavy rotation. Exploring the connective tissue between those two worlds, Snell began writing and sharing his own tunes on social media while stuck on base through COVID-19, and fans flocked to the unique combination. Seeing each song as an outlet for his most powerful emotions – ones that would eat a person alive if left bottled up –, Snell dug deep to mine everything from loneliness and regret to a sense of spiritual salvation. He did it with honesty and left nothing on the table.
“It’s just how I’m wired together,” Snell says. “Writing for me personally is just feeling all those emotions super deeply.”
Featuring heavily distorted dark-energy guitars, thundering drums, and a wounded vocal at the end of its rope, “Excuse the Mess” brought Snell his first hit and propelled him to Nashville, followed by an electrifying cover of “Wasting All These Tears.” Next-big-thing recognition as a SiriusXM Highway Find came soon after, and then, “Pray All the Way Home” kicked the proverbial door off its hinges. A dashboard-pounding mix of country vocals, hard-rocking guitars, and hip-hop beats, the anthem of inner conflict follows a tortured soul self-medicating his pain, caught in a cycle of blackouts, breakdowns, and redemption. With over 35 million streams and counting, that fusion struck a resonating chord – for fans and Snell himself.
“I’ve definitely made my fair share of mistakes,” he admits. “The song is super special. It tells a very real story for not only me, but I think a lot of people.”
Now, after a series of EPs in quick succession, Snell’s Still Bleeding builds on that soul-baring foundation, taking his confessions to the level of an emotional x-ray. Over 13 songs – all but one written or co-written by Snell and produced by Andrew Bayliss (Jelly Roll, Koe Wetzel) – the rising star tackles heartbreak and mental health, the black hole of addiction and the buried traumas of the past, along with the rush of romance and the careful tending of hope’s eternal flame. Meanwhile, Snell expands his grunge country sound, reaching the “un-cornerable” crossroads between country, rock, hip hop, and beyond.
“Putting rock in country is always going to be part of my identity, but the music that we grew up listening to, people just listened to literally whatever was under the sun,” he says. “I wanted to hit every nail on the head while also telling more of my story and letting people know where I’ve come from and what I’ve been through.”
Joining “Pray All the Way Home” – which is now rising as Snell’s first country radio single and “just keeps living, surviving everything” – tracks like “More Alcohol” continue the confessional trend, fusing moody acoustic guitars and a vocal as jagged as his broken heart to lyrics drowning in regret. Tunes like woozy “Whiskey Me” lament the two-faced nature of addiction, and while the tender toughness of “Double Barrel” admits happiness is a hard target to hit when carrying the past, the volatile “Let Me Burn” finds a guy too far into his downward spiral to pull back.
Others dig into the ache of romantic failure, like the solo-written acoustic agony of “Wasting Mine,” but Snell often pairs his pain with coursing, high-voltage energy, turning heartbreakers into headbangers.
“You don’t wake up and feel the same way every day,” he says of the tunes, co-written with Matt Dragstrem, Blake Pendergrass, Justin Ebach, Riley Thomas, and more. “It’s all an ever-flowing roller coaster of life, and I just look for other people willing to ride that roller coaster.”
Tracks like the tailgate rocker “Some Things Just Stick” proudly proclaim that country can’t be washed off. And while the playful “Don’t Pick Up” pulls the plug on a drunk dial before the phone even rings – fusing witty “Weezer vibes” and stone-cold lyrics for an instant bar-room singalong – the dusky “Everybody’s Friend” digs into the Nickelback playbook; an anthemic tribute to a fiendish companion we all come to know. “Other Girl” stands as a rootsy roadhouse stomp, celebrating a romantic upgrade his ex never saw coming. And with the molten-hot desire of “Wildfire” – the album’s only outside cut – Snell can’t escape the flames of a bad romance.
Elsewhere, the resolute roots stunner “So Can I” pleads for another chance to do right, and the album ends on a pensive, pure-country ballad of transformation. With the slow-but-strengthening pulse of “We Weren’t Meant to Be,” the bruises and scars of the past give way to the healing of true, against-the-odds romance, and Snell’s blowtorch vocal finally burns through his armor-plated exterior. It’s a resilient reminder that life isn’t always pretty, and neither is country music. But as long as you’re still bleeding, there’s reason to keep up the fight.
“I’m super proud of this,” Snell says. “We tell a lot of stories on this album – there’s a lot of sadness, a lot of happiness, and a lot of in-between – and for this first stab at a full project, I chose to tell it all. I wanted just to show everybody exactly who I am.”
