Artist:     Jared Hard

Album:     10,000 Hydrogen Bombs

Label:     Self Released

Release Date:     04/29/2016

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Jared Hard examines life’s tough moments with a clarity and tenderness today’s country music seems to have abandoned. Whether welcoming back a brother returned from the war (“He looks just like my brother…but I’m telling you, it ain’t the same man”) or planning his own funeral (“Single Mountain Fiddle”), Hard pulls heartstrings as taut as his guitar strings.

The first track and the last—the title tune—show off Hard’s lighter side: “Right Where You’re At” is exactly where love will find you (sooner or later), and, just when you expected something darkly cataclysmic from anything called “10,000 Hydrogen Bombs,” we find out that’s what love at first sight felt like for Hard. Who’d have thought nuclear fallout could be so romantic?

From the simple, childlike cover art to the straightforward lyrics and unembellished arrangements, this EP delivers the real stuff. Expect more and even better from this newcomer.

—Suzanne Cadgène