Cass County (album)
| Cass County | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Don Henley | ||||
| Released | September 25, 2015 | |||
| Recorded | 2014–2015 | |||
| Genre | Country, rock | |||
| Length | 48:43 | |||
| Label | Past Masters Holdings, Capitol Records | |||
| Producer | Henley, Stan Lynch | |||
| Don Henley chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 72/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| American Songwriter | |
| The Guardian | |
| PopMatters |   |
| Rolling Stone | |
Cass County is the fifth solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Don Henley. The album was released on September 25, 2015, by Past Masters Holdings and Capitol Records. It is Don Henley's first new solo album in 15 years since 2000's Inside Job.
In June 2015, Don Henley spoke about recording the album in Nashville, Tennessee, saying: "The great majority [of recording] was done right here in Nashville and I can truthfully say that I enjoyed making this record more than any record I've made in my career. And a lot of the reason is because of the people who participated. There's some amazing musicians here and the best thing about it is, most of them are funny. So it was a real pleasure."
The album is named after the East Texas county where Henley grew up.
Cass County received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 72 based on 9 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". David Fricke of Rolling Stone said, "Written and produced with Stan Lynch, the original drummer in Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, Cass County is meticulously crafted, sharply written and absolutely free of neo-country additives like reheated Seventies-rock bombast and Twitter-verse vernacular." Dave Heaton of PopMatters stated, "At the album’s best, Henley conjures up the push-pull between restlessness and contentment in a way that jibes well with the musical interest in the traditions of the genre. At its worst, the album makes me want to throw it out the window, either for the cliches or more often the way the persona of the album comes from a lecturing place of “wisdom”; an I’ve-lived, so I know attitude." Jon Caramanica of The New York Times said, "The number and potency of these guests sometimes make Cass County sound like a tribute album to someone not yet gone. They also take away from Mr. Henley, now 68, whose voice has decayed nicely, though it now lacks the wise punch it had on The End of the Innocence, his excellent 1989 album."
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