Daniel Young

On the sunset side of the ground floor of Daniel Young's home studio, there's a window that frames a long, straight road. And if you catch it when the light's right, you could swear that road goes on and on—west west west—straight through the Oquirrh Mountains. Nevada. California. It's not hard to imagine that window, that unridden road, and these songs of Young's all shuffled together, ace side up, this past spring and summer. Sometimes you do your hardest traveling at home. That's the way it seems on The World Ain't Gonna Wait, Young's third album. Written on the late-night back porch and mostly recorded in the basement at Orchard Studios, these songs chronicle the urgency and uneasiness of the everyday emergency, the undeniable sense that you may be living your last day—or at least the last day on the world you've known.

Musically, the bleary blend of country, rock & roll, and greasy blues is augmented by cosmic Dead-style extended jams, Burrito-worthy grooves, and West Coast melodicism. Like so many before him, Daniel has sought solace in desert places, including a pilgrimage to the Joshua Tree Inn to find the spirit of his idol Gram Parsons. The World Ain't Gonna Wait bears witness of those spaces, those journeys. Go with him, if you can—you may not know it yet but you're probably heading there anyway.