Where It's At

Roadhouse Romeo, blue-collar balladeer, small-town troubadour: Dustin Lynch wears many hats on Where It’s At and does so convincingly. The Tennessee native beats the sophomore-album jinx by tempering his ladykiller persona with a touch of sensitivity and a hint of swagger. Lynch asserts his individuality as an artist by cowriting five tracks and choosing superior material from such A-list tunesmiths as Rhett Akins, Josh Leo, and Tim Nichols. Songs like “Hell of a Night,” “Halo,” and “After Party” are persuasive slices of down-home seduction, delivered with a wink and a grin amid muscular rock riffage and steady grooves. The mixed emotional signals of “Middle of Nowhere” and the backroads breeziness of “What You Wanna Hear” offer a more thoughtful take on romance. Reaching beyond boy/girl matters, Lynch salutes life in the heartland with “World to Me” and offers some inspiration to hard-working families in “American Prayer.” Add the pure country charm of “Your Daddy’s Boots” and “She Wants a Cowboy” to the mix, and Where It’s At has it all.