High (Capitol Nashville, 2024)

Following hits "Straight Line," "Wildside" and "Go Home W U" featuring Lainey Wilson, Keith Urban drops thematically driven and pleasantly electrifying album "High," a nearly four-year drop since 2020's "The Speed of Now Part 1."

Urban took great interest in feelings and experiences associated with the word "high," reflecting on his own passions approaching the sensation or "place of utopia" as Urban dubs it . That is an appropriate description, as each track offers fun, upbeat instrumentals with even the gravest tunes, which are comparatively few and far between.

The most somber song, "Love is Hard," remains consistent with the glass-half-full messaging and optimistic guitar strums, meaning, as the listener, we persist within Urban's perception of "high," a type of high that hardly dips.

Prelude "Blue Sky" sets the landscape with a blaring alarm, groggy Urban and his groaned "Just give me some blue sky, please." The lead-off track "Straight Line" answers this plea, ripping in and impressing on the listener the very swift grant of blue sky. It is charged, confident and downright exciting — the embodiment of the most perfect, cloudless, non-misty blue sky—and the succeeding numbers flourish.

Urban is tonally consistent, vocals beating along the percussion through the weighty and equally groovy "Messed Up as Me," foot-stomper and lyrically compelling "Wildside" and headbangers "Daytona" and "Laughin' All the Way to the Drank."

Urban's implementation of country's traditional string instruments, like the guitar and banjo, intertwined with piano, highly programmed synths and atypical musical devices, such as the EBow in "Messed Up as Me," retains his recognizable, undeniable musicality and catchy original hooks. Urban's pre-chorus build-up is uniquely captivating, effortlessly progressing to an often-explosive chorus. It's a trait found in older albums like "Ripcord" and "Defying Gravity," in songs like "The Fighter" and "Sweet Thing." With this nice intermingle of modern and classic techniques, Urban fans of any decade have a fulfilling product capable of satisfying that Urban itch.

There's much to dote on, as Urban remains an unwavering powerhouse whose well-sculpted sound and musical technique, as well as his characteristic electric guitar shredding and lyrical phrasing, beam through each tune without a flicker. His refreshing brand of country is poetic and symbolic, riddled with appreciative mini-tributes to youth, to love, to failing and getting back up. This album is an ode to life, to its low, but perhaps most importantly, its high.