For their fourth album, The Wolfe Brothers were intent on pushing themselves out of their comfort zone. To that end, producer Matt Fell began by creating unusual sounds, electronic details and exploring sonic spaces the band had never considered before. As a result, Country Heart is what many in the industry might have deemed a risk—but one that paid off exponentially. Country Heart was so named by The Wolfe Brothers to assert where their hearts lie. Despite the off-genre studio flourishes on songs like “We Got Close” and “Storm Rollin In”, in practice the album offered accessible inroads both for the band and country music at large. The Wolfe Brothers’ first three records stayed true to genre tradition. Like many of their peers, they decided that if the tractor wheel wasn’t broken, it didn’t need to be reinvented. Country Heart generates a familiar affection—“Something Outta Nothing” transports the listener to a dusty porch at sunset—but when The Wolfe Brothers dared to dabble with Fell’s ideas, this record struck even richer veins of gold. Opener and first single “Ain’t Seen It Yet” won Song of the Year at the 2019 Country Music Association of Australia’s Golden Guitar Awards—an unusual feat given it could almost be electro-pop were it not for the brothers’ desert-bound drawls and Brodie Rainbird’s clashing guitars. “We Got Wheels” is similarly pulled up by the bootstraps of a dreamy lustre unfamiliar to the genre, coming off like U2 returning from a holiday in the band’s hometown of Longley. It was touches like these that built up to the album’s big, open heart—and would see their music beat with even more creative gusto on 2021’s Kids on Cassette.