''Never Will'' is the fourth studio album by American country music singer-songwriter

Ashley McBryde Ashley McBryde (born July 29, 1983) is an American country music singer–songwriter. Raised in Arkansas, she was drawn to various types of music from a young age. She also developed a passion for writing songs and later moved to Nashville, Tennes ...

. It was released on April 3, 2020 via

Warner Music Nashville Warner Music Group's labels include the following. Flagship labels * Atlantic Records * Elektra Records *Parlophone Records *Warner Records Atlantic Records Group * 1st & 15th Entertainment * All Money In * Artist Partners Group * Asylum Re ...

. The album is McBryde's second major label release and was preceded by the lead single "One Night Standards". McBryde launched the One Night Standards Tour in support of the album on January 30, 2020. ''Never Will'' was nominated for the

Grammy Award for Best Country Album The Grammy Award for Best Country Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality albums in the country music genre. Honors in ...

and the

Country Music Association Award for Album of the Year The following list shows the recipients for the Country Music Association Award for Album of the Year. George Strait has won the most awards. Other artists with multiple wins are Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Charlie Rich, Ronnie Milsap, Willie Nelso ...

Release and promotion

The album's title, track listing and release date were revealed on January 17, 2020.

Singles

The first single from the album, "One Night Standards", was released on August 30, 2019. It impacted country radio on September 23, 2019. The music video was released on December 19. Two additional songs—"Martha Divine" and "Hang in There Girl"—were released ahead of the album as promotional singles in January 2020. Both were accompanied by music videos that made up a chronological 3-part series beginning with the video for "One Night Standards".

Tour

Beginning January 30, 2020, McBryde launched the One Night Standards Tour to support the album.

Critical reception

''Never Will'' was met with widespread critical acclaim. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 83, based on 7 reviews. ''

American Songwriter ''American Songwriter'' is a bimonthly magazine covering songwriting. Established in 1984, it features interviews, songwriting tips, news, reviews and lyric contest. The magazine is based in Nashville, Tennessee. History The ''American Songwri ...

'' reviewer Hal Horowitz applauded the music, regarding it as "a rock/country hybrid that's more visceral than, well, country/rock, and hits harder too". On the other hand,

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

lamented "the production here: Nashville rock at its bigged-up schlockiest, with McBryde belting to match", but applauded the songwriting as "compact", engaging, and "so sharp it gives her the right to belt: lyrically not one of the 11 tracks is merely passable". Jonathan Bernstein from ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' similarly praised the lyrics, calling McBryde "one of country's sharpest truth-tellers".

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel

Adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

*Blue Foley - background vocals *Jason Hall- background vocals *Chris Harris -

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

, background vocals *Matt Helmkamp -

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

, background vocals *Quinn Hill -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

, background vocals *

Jay Joyce John Joseph "Jay" Joyce is an American record producer, songwriter and session musician. In the 1990s, Joyce, with Chris Feinstein and Brad Pemberton, recorded and toured as Iodine and began working as a record producer, working with artists suc ...

Farfisa organ Farfisa (Fabbriche Riunite di Fisarmoniche) is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy, founded in 1946. The company manufactured a series of compact electronic organs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Compact, FAST, Professiona ...

, acoustic guitar, electric guitar,

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, programming, background vocals *Jimmy Mansfield - background vocals *

- acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lead vocals, background vocals *Chris Sancho -

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, background vocals *Trick Savage - background vocals *Dan Smalley - background vocals

Charts

References

{{Ashley McBryde Ashley McBryde albums Warner Records albums Albums produced by Jay Joyce 2020 albums