Run Like A Bull is the third album from singer-songwriter Ryan Culwell and his first new album in over three years. Like the Texas greats who came before him, he tells capitvating stories of lives lived hard from the plains of Texas to the hill country.
I first learned of Ryan Cullwell from a Rolling Stone piece a few years back. To me his songs feel as much about the writer as about the character, and at times, about the listener.
To paraphrase his album bio, Run Like A Bull is raw and magnetic, cutting close to the bone as it searches for a middle ground between release and restraint, recklessness and responsibility. Culwell faces down his own worst instincts here, grappling with weighty, existential notions the way Flannery O’Connor might, conjuring up images of alternating beauty and brutality set against a distinctly American backdrop. “We all laugh when a young calf struggles to his feet,” Culwell sings in his gritty rasp. “When an old bull falls down on his ass I guess it ain’t so sweet.”
If you're into the likes of Rodney Crowell, Billy Joe Shaver, Bruce Robison, Hayes Carll, or Ryan Bingham, give Ryan a listen.