Stay sepia…

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[5.43]

Alfred Soto: Oh brother. Mr. Homeboy, wiping sweat from his brow, embraces marginalism as if he and the genre he represents sell as many records as the Velvet Underground in 1967. Months of Jason Aldean, Kip Moore, Blake Shelton and the margarine-infused Luke Bryan using brawny male choruses, power chords and blinking arena lights has soured me on Eric Church’s use of same. And yet the best male singer, songwriter and performer in country is also a damn good bandleader. From the fuzz guitars to the bass pokes at 1:41 to the unmitigated snarl in the last third, he’s got something to shout. 
[6]

Edward Okulicz: This song would be ideal for the soundtrack of a remake of Young Guns; it’s anthemic and has a pleasingly crunchy, crashing riff that propels the chorus nicely. Compared to the singles off Chief, nobody can say Eric Church does the same thing over and over again (although this isn’t that much heavier than “Country Music Jesus”) but a slew of heavy rock-influenced country singles over the last two years or so have really stolen this one’s thunder.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: “We’re the paint where there ain’t supposed to be paint” must be one of the worst metaphors for outsiderdom ever conceived. What is he, an erroneously marked double yellow line? Perhaps more likely, by the sound of the thing, he’s been sending people the “Wrong Way Down A One-Way Street.”
[4]

Brad Shoup: God, that paint-by-numbers bit was tragic. I couldn’t deal with this if Bon Jovi released it, and I can’t now.
[2]

Anthony Easton: Can you be an outsider when you are cashing cheques from Universal? Can you be an outsider when you say the phrase “band of brothers,” precluding any inclusiveness? Can you be outsiders when you use the same rock riffs as ’80s hair metal?  
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Unmitigated bullshit, both sociologically and literally — Church is an award-feted major-label musician, and writer Casey Beathard was an Elon frat boy who did, as Wikipedia boasts, “Top Ten singles for Gary Allan, Billy Ray Cyrus, Trace Adkins, and Kenny Chesney.” But it’s delivered first with pretty gusto (that first “that’s who we are” is Eric Church as The Church, Auto-Tuned to resonance), then with bizarreness: accidentally quoting 3LW, going on a bass junket as if Church’s band suddenly decided they weren’t really Outsiders but Pixies. Is that a fucking chiptune at 2:51 of a Southern rock song?
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “The Outsiders” is the type of straight-faced arena-alterna fuzz that radio sorely needs inbetween replays of “No One Knows”, if at least for people to make like me and call him “Eric Crunch”. Two extra points for when it suddenly turns into a Mastodon song; one point off for not going on for eight more minutes. Surely Crunch will do so when he tours, making this a mere preview/the most rockingest infomercial in C&W.
[7]