No Seatbelts, No Sainthood: Steve Poltz and the Art of Surviving the JoyRide
There are songwriters, and then there are weather systems. Steve Poltz is the latter — a swirling, caffeinated front that rolls into town, knocks over your lawn furniture, tells you three inappropriate jokes, two confessions and one truth so sharp it leaves a scar.
JoyRide, his 14th album, is what happens when you try to bottle that storm without putting a lid on it. Produced by Dex Green in East Nashville, the record captures Poltz the way he actually exists: mid-spin, mid-laugh, mid-revelation. No polish, no hesitation, no apology.
The opener, “If It Bleeds It Leads,” is vintage Poltz cultural autopsy. A quiet night watching the news mutates into SWAT teams and self-inflicted spectacle. His fingerstyle acoustic is dizzying — not flashy for the sake of it, but restless, alive. He plays like a man who discovered alternate tunings in a fever dream and decided standard tuning was for accountants. The melody sticks. The chorus burrows in. Three days later, you’re humming it while scraping tomato sauce out of the frying pan, wondering how he smuggled social commentary into something that feels like a campfire romp.
That’s the trick. Since his early days with The Rugburns — when satire arrived in loud, sideways bursts of cultural send-ups — Poltz has evolved into something rarer: a prolific North American troubadour who can pivot from absurdist theatre to white-knuckled manifesto without changing guitars. The humour is still there, but it’s sharpened by survival, by decades on the road, and by having written songs for himself and endless others, including that small matter of co-writing “You Were Meant for Me,” Jewel’s skyscraping pop smash that once claimed status as the longest-running single on the Billboard Hot 100. On JoyRide, it’s clear that his pop instincts never left; they just got weirder.
The lexicon-building “Petrichor” gallops in on a finger-rolled pattern that feels like rainfall translated into wood and wire. It’s not a joke. It’s atmosphere. It’s scent turned into sound. The writing is observational, almost devotional. You realise the guy who can rhyme Mao Zedong with anatomical misunderstanding is also capable of hushed awe.
Then comes “The Son of God,” a surrealist saga featuring storage units, Bob Dylan, metaphysical punchlines and Jesus as an encyclopedia salesmen. Live, it detonates. On record, it still crackles — part Arlo Guthrie, part late-night diner philosophy. You may not need it every spin, but the world absolutely needs the fact that it exists. Poltz commits fully to the bit because that’s how he commits to everything.
Already a staple in his live set, “Brand New Liver” is Poltz at his most diabolically economical — four chords, one wicked premise, and a chorus so irresponsibly joyous you find yourself cheering on the giddy recipient as he cracks open his first post-transplant brew. “Love a Little Bigger,” co-written with Vince Herman, is a rapid-fire collage of dubious characters and timeless advice and the title track, is a two-and-a-half-minute inventory of the touring musician’s existence: capos, car wrecks, soundchecks, salvation by stage light. It’s funny until it isn’t. It’s funny because it’s true.
And that’s the through-line. However unhinged the rhyme scheme, however strange the tuning, however elastic the narrative, Poltz is writing about something real. He’s one of the few artists left who can make a room of strangers feel like co-conspirators. His live shows are less concerts than communal events — part stand-up, part revival, part punk-rock sleepover. No two are the same. All of them matter.
In an era of algorithmic polish and genre branding, Poltz remains defiantly human. Ten songs. Voice and guitar at the centre. A little bass, some drums, a Mellotron ghost drifting through the mix. You can hear the room. You can hear the grin.
Most of all, you can hear the songs. And that’s the secret sauce. Strip away the jokes, the asides, the myth, and what remains are hooks — sturdy, melodic, insistent. The kind that circle back at inconvenient moments. The kind you carry with you days, even weeks after hearing them.
Talents like this don’t arrive on schedule. They don’t trend. They endure. JoyRide isn’t just another album in a long discography. It’s proof that Steve Poltz is still out there, spinning, searching, and still writing songs that refuse to let go.
🔥 RATING: 9/10
🎸 KEY TRACKS: “If It Bleeds It Leads,” “Brand New Liver,” “Petrichor,” “JoyRide,” “The Son of God”
📻 FILE UNDER: Gonzo Americana, Fingerstyle sorcery, Manifesto folk, Road-warrior hymnals, Stand-up revival tent songwriting