Daughn Gibson's All Hell is probably the most beautiful and interesting sad country record you will hear this year.  It sounds like album recorded on rainy nights after a heartbroken Gibson left a trance show, drove home listening to John Cale and the Magnetic fields, went to his studio in the attic of a modest country home, and began drinking and recording while it rained furiously outside.

All Hell is lushly produced and employs as much non-traditional instrumentation as it does old standbys like acoustic guitars and pianos.  Synths and Gibson's crooning unify the album that otherwise runs the gamut from alt-country to layered, electronic indie.  All Hell is as much a traditional country album as it is a reflection of modern music themes and this golden internet age of music production and distribution.  Listen to these songs closely enough and you will hear production that's reminiscent of Dan Deacon, TV on the Radio, Burial, etc., etc.  This has been said 1,000 times before, but it bears repeating: anyone with a few hundred dollars can now produce a record and make it available to almost anyone in the entire world.  All Hell wears these varied influences on its sleeve and is a clear reflection of that democratization, of the erosion of genres and the rapidity with which new ideas bounce between the minds of aspiring musicians and producers.  Man, this is such a great time to be a music fan.