DOUGLAS RILEY

                                                              "Home Bar" 

                                                               Independent Release

Over the past few single releases from his A Love Like That album, Douglas Riley has been showcasing his signature sound which pulls from a mid-2000’s country influence and adds just enough of a modern approach to bring relevancy within the parameters of today’s era.

With his newest single, “Home Bar,” Riley gives us a song that has us thinking about our own local watering holes through its picture painting lyrics, while also offering the first taste of the new music that he’s been working on since the album’s release.

With the noise of a Friday night party crowd fused into the intro of the song, Riley perfectly sets the mood for things to come as he sits it against a catchy, twang fueled guitar to drop us into the upbeat opening lines that immediately take us inside the bar, “when I walk through the door, they’ll be waiting for me.”

He sets the atmosphere throughout the song by singing of some of the different activities that he and his friends do at the bar such as shooting pool and playing corn hole in the yard out back, while also mentioning its flickering neon sign, the jukebox that only takes quarters, and the old dance floor. But as the second half of that opening line foreshadows, this isn’t necessarily a song about the bar itself but about the people you call friends that you see up there – your crew if you will!

Take for example Katy…the waitress who he has a schoolboy crush on.

Or Jimmy…his longtime friend who he shoots whiskey with while talking smack.

However, beyond just connecting with the listener through its relatable lyrics, Riley also includes a pivotal moment during the final chorus that will pull a live audience deeper into the song and make them feel a part of it when he drops back the instrumentation to provide an irresistible sing-along moment that will have beer bottles raised in the air as the crowd screams back the lyrics at him:

“We all need a home bar

A place we all go bar

Really ain’t too far

Just down the road bar

Where the lights are all neon

We all agree on

That we’re all friends here

As long as there’s cold beer.”

Douglas Riley has clearly found his niche with an overall sound that gives a fresh spin to an era of country often hailed as one of its strongest…and he unashamedly delivers it again with “Home Bar,” scratching an itch that many longtime country music fans are having by giving them the sound that they’re clamoring for.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis / album art by: Jenny Petite)

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