Langhorne Slim’s Be Set Free is raw, genuine, and speckled with kick-up-yer-boots, honky-tonk flair.
Langhorne Slim’s music is a throwback to earlier days, evoking images of smoky honky-tonks and empty bottles of bourbon. He has a flat-picking style as fervent as the snarl and bite of his love songs, and if you catch him live, you’ll see he has dance moves to match. On Be Set Free, Slim’s third full-length, tracks like “Back to the Wild” and “I Love You, but Goodbye” are so sincere, it’s hard not to place yourself in the gut-wrenching stories he tells. Other songs, like “Cinderella” and “Say Yes,” have that get-on-the-stage-and-dance vibe, which have made Langhorne’s shows legendary. With dramatic string arrangements, melancholy lyrics that are still ever-hopeful, and vocal harmonies that will haunt you for days, Be Set Free is Langhorne’s most cohesive album to date.
