REVIEW: Thomas Csorba’s Self-Titled Album is Wildly Satisfying

Thomas Csorba – Self-Titled (Highway Kid)

“I want,” the opening track off of Thomas Csorba’s eponymous new album, is as beautiful in its simplicity as it is earnest. Backed by little more than a humming organ and acoustic strums, Csorba reels off a list of life goals in a seemingly autobiographical mantra. He talk about wanting to sing like “the angel in the heavens above,” write less about romance and more about love and caping it all off with the haunting, but heartfelt “’Cause we’re all broken sometimes and we’re all gonna die.”

That song serves as a perfect intro to Csorba’s music. What follows is near perfect modern Americana album with nods to everything from Austin Cosmic County on a song like “Highway Kid,” to the classic Outlaw Country vibe on “Walking Sideway,” a wryly clever song that sounds like it could been penned by Billy Joe Shaver or Ray Wylie Hubbard. The record manages to be both extremely intimate and wildly accessible. The album was produced by Beau Bedford of The Texas Gentlemen and features a number of Bedford’s bandmates filling in throughout the record. There is also no mistaking the Willie Nelson influence across the record. A natural outcome from a Houston kid raised on Willie from a young age. Appropriately enough, Csorba was a guest at Willie’s Luck Reunion two years ago (where he first met Bedford and the rest of his band).

The album ends on a perfect rendition of the classic Goldcoast Singer’s song “Plastic Jesus,” a song just as cleverly inventive now as it was when it first came out five decades ago. As he was ending work on the record, COVID 19 descended on us derailing Csorba’s plans to tour behind the album. But it also gave him time to write and record a few more songs that ended up on the record. Across 11 tracks, Csorba solidifies himself as one of the most promising new Americana musicians to come out of the Lone Star State with a wildly satisfying album to build a career off of. http://www.thomascsorba.com