Jarrod Dickenson

If Jarrod Dickenson’s third studio album, “BIG TALK” sounds like a mighty roar of defiance, that’s not a design choice or a marketing decision.

So what happened in the years since the release of Dickenson’s soulful sophomore long-player, “Ready the Horses”, to have turned this honey-voiced southern gentleman into a brawler?

After a major label deal-gone-bad threatened to choke off his career and Covid complications left him with a life-long medical condition Dickenson would have certainly been forgiven for retreating to his Nashville home to lick wounds and maybe write a collection of introspective self-pity anthems.

Instead, the hardships and infuriation of recent years have only added steel to the resolve of an artist already willing to do it the hard way, prepared to stand in the face of a music business that shows dwindling regard for the brand of artistry that first inspired him to pick up a guitar and sing for his life.