Dylan Lancaster writes songs.

His songs remind you that rock is, at its most pure and basic, just a person and a guitar, a story and some questions. He cut his teeth in Kalamazoo, where he played in country-rock bands alongside local punk outfits, listened to Springsteen records on repeat, and lived across the street from a graveyard. Now he's in Nashville, singing in dive-y karaoke bars and penning songs that sound like elegies for a past self, scribbled somewhere between the dusty tales of Outlaw Country and the searing uplift of a Neil Young guitar solo.

His debut EP, due out in 2017, is a kind of patchwork of 60s American poetry, faded record store finds, and sharp guitar playing. It's the sound of a songwriter wading through his wide influences, taking what he needs, fashioning what he can't find.

But what's important in all this—what's pure and basic—is that Dylan Lancaster writes songs.

- August Smith