Riley Green - "That’s Just Me": Album Review
From heartbreak and whiskey-soaked nights to family, Southern roots and finding purpose, Riley Green’s fourth album traces the different versions of a life.
Editorial Review | Partner Feature
There is a particular kind of country storytelling that doesn't need much decoration. A guitar, a fiddle, a voice that sounds like it has spent some time thinking about the past and suddenly a song can feel like a conversation you have somehow walked into. Riley Green has built much of his career around that kind of songwriting and Riley Green’s That’s Just Me, his fourth studio album, continues to live firmly inside that tradition.
Released on September 18, 2026, the 19-track album brings together stories about love, loneliness, family, drinking, old roads and the places that stay with you. The record was written and recorded during a pivotal chapter in Green’s life and career and that sense of looking backwards is present throughout the album.
Musically, Riley Green doesn't need to reinvent country to make the songs work. The arrangements are clean and carefully produced, built around strumming acoustic guitars, fiddle, relaxed drums and electric guitars that often sit underneath the vocal rather than competing with it. The fiddle gets some particularly nice moments of its own, appearing in small melodic solos that give the songs room without pulling them away from their storytelling centre. And storytelling really is the centre here.
A large part of "That’s Just Me" deals with relationships from the perspective of someone who is no longer in one. There is plenty of “what if”, regret and reflection, but Green rarely stays in one emotional place for too long. The title track is almost misleading at first. "That’s Just Me" sounds like it should be an uncomplicated declaration of self-confidence, yet the song turns inward, arriving at the image of Green being alone and “dying” there. It sets the tone for an album that is considerably more melancholic than its title might suggest.
Then there is “Go Again”, featuring Hannah McFarland. The song shifts the atmosphere towards something warmer and more distinctly Americana, with a campfire quality and an easy call-and-response between the two singers. It feels less like a performance and more like two people sharing the same story from different sides. Elsewhere, “Got That From You” brings in banjo and bright, clean guitar tones, giving the album one of its lighter, more immediately rhythmic moments. It is the kind of song that can make you move along without asking you to stop listening to the lyrics.
Because eventually, the heartbreak becomes a bar.
Around the middle of the album, "That’s Just Me" starts filling up with whiskey, cowboys, bars and the mythology of the American South. “Think As You Drunk” plays with that familiar country humor, while “Well Well Whiskey” turns drinking into a conversation with an old acquaintance. The mood has changed: the narrator who was previously stuck in lost love is now trying to laugh, drink and talk himself back into confidence.
“P.O.S.” pushes that transformation even further. Instead of presenting himself as the wounded romantic, Green embraces the messier version of the character - the unreliable, reckless man who can at least own his reputation. It is funny, but it also feels like part of the album's larger movement away from simply mourning what has been lost.
And then the record looks homeward.
“Pave All Them Red Dirt Roads”, featuring Brooks & Dunn, brings family memories and childhood into the picture. The past is no longer only about an old relationship; it is about fathers, first beers, dirt roads and the places that shaped Green before any of the heartbreak on this record existed. The album's Southern geography becomes part of its emotional geography, with Georgia and Alabama appearing not simply as locations but as pieces of memory. The collaborations reinforce that sense of place. Alongside McFarland, the album features Jake Worthington, Brooks & Dunn and Randy Owen of Alabama. They don't pull the album away from Green's identity; instead, they place his songs within a wider country tradition that he clearly understands and inhabits comfortably.
By the time "That’s Just Me" reaches its final track, “Ten Pairs of Boots”, the boots themselves have become a kind of timeline. Different pairs belong to different versions of the narrator: nights out, women, mistakes, growing older, becoming a father and eventually finding some sense of purpose. The ending doesn't erase everything that came before it. It puts those experiences into perspective. That may be the most interesting thing about "That’s Just Me". Riley Green isn't presenting a completely new version of country music here. He is working with familiar sounds, familiar settings and familiar stories. But familiarity is part of the point. The songs are specific enough to belong to him, while the feelings are open enough for listeners to put their own memories into them. The result is an album that moves from loneliness to the bar, from the bar back to family and finally towards a quieter understanding of where all those roads have led.
Maybe that's what "That’s Just Me" really means: not a fixed identity, but all the versions of yourself that eventually become part of the same person.
Continue Exploring
Discover more artists shaping contemporary independent music culture in our Artist Features. For further perspectives on identity, atmosphere and narrative within modern alternative music, explore our Cultural Essays.
Comments