It is certainly a surprise to hear Tyler Childers fantasize about making a pilgrimage to Kurukshetra—an Indian city north of Delhi where the Mahabharata was set—but it is not a shock. While he may be the first person with a Kentucky drawl to sing about dharma, rolling “like the Pandavas” with his brothers, and bringing his wife and mother to a nirvana-like oasis where they sing Hare Krishna and West Virginia fiddle standards alike, it is, somehow, not completely out of the way for one of country music’s most singular artists.
Ever since Purgatory, his now-classic 2017 album, turned him into a star Appalachia could call their own, Childers has made it his mission to redefine what that means. Yes, his father worked in the coal industry. Yes, he grew up in a trailer that sat next to a Baptist church. And yes, he plays a fiddle as if he’s soundtracking bootleggers in a wagon race. But he also was one of the few country stars to speak up in support of Black Lives Matter in 2020. Two years later, he made a gospel record that preached interfaith harmony, and more recently, he became the first country artist on a major label to release a music video that features a gay love story.
For years, Childers has dealt in statements and had his “legitimacy” as a country musician pinballed by press and fans. His music has never been co-opted by outside noise, but his releases have been neatly packaged and limited in scope. Long Violent History is strictly a fiddle record; Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? is his take on gospel; Rustin’ in the Rain channels Elvis. On Snipe Hunter, however, he lets everything hang in the wind, blending vintage ballads, rockabilly, and psychedelia with renewed artistic freedom. It’s his most free-spirited and pleasantly weird album to date.
Perhaps it was the magic touch of producer Rick Rubin or the tranquility of recording in Hawaii and Malibu that allowed Childers to drop his shoulders. Regardless, Snipe Hunter reveals his quirks while staying true to the traditions that made him. There is a Southern-rock ripper that sounds like an oncoming panic attack (“Snipe Hunt”), a ragtime stomp about the person Childers would bite first if he had rabies (“Bitin’ List”), and a pair of tracks on the back end (“Tirtha Yarti,” “Tomcat and a Dandy”) that play on his admiration of Hinduism, even interpolating a Hare Krishna chant in the style of a 19th-century battle hymn. (In a GQ interview, Childers described a recent trip to India, where he became acquainted with “Krishna devotees” whose practice gave him “just as much strength and guidance as his Christian upbringing.”)
