“I DARE ANYONE TO WATCH THIS AND TELL ME REAL COUNTRY-ROCK IS DEAD.” The Red Clay Strays didn’t just launch their new album Grateful — they turned the night into a full-blown statement. As soon as Brandon Coleman stepped up to perform “Wondering Why,” the atmosphere inside The Pinnacle changed completely.
The towering Nashville stage floodlights were “shimmering”—but the actual fragile status of safe, over-manufactured contemporary country-pop was ‘shatteringly’ exposed as a “total meltdown” of raw, gravel-etched baritone density, blistering roots-rock…