Great Peacock

Leave it to Great Peacock — a band whose big, bold sound has been sharpened by years of relentless touring — to create some of the most compelling rock & roll road music of the 21st century.

Forever Worse Better, the third full-length release from the Nashville band (following 2015’s Making Ghosts and 2018’s Gran Pavo Real), is an anthemic soundtrack for a life spent on the move, chasing down brighter horizons somewhere between the blur of truck stops and traffic lights. This is the band’s defining album: a record about the three-way intersection between drive, desperation, and determination, rooted in the epic sweep of heartland rock, the harmonized melodies of amplified Americana, and the hooks of guitar-driven pop music. It’s an album that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, yet still sports a sound that’s unmistakably Great Peacock’s own.

While the album’s guest list is admittedly impressive — with everyone from American Aquarium‘s former pedal-steel guitarist, Adam Kurtz, to Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit‘s lead guitarist, Sadler Vaden, lending their help — most of Forever Worse Better was handled in-house, a move that showcases the strength of a band whose members have not only crystallized their sound, but sharpened their own abilities, too.

Forever Worse Better is a soundtrack for those of us who, like them, are on the road to somewhere better, the windows down, the radio cranked high, songs moving through our head at highway speed.