Snipe Hunter (Hickman Holler Records/RCA, 2025)

A snipe hunt is a rather cruel practical joke where an unsophisticated newcomer is taken along on a "hunting" trip. Their job is to hold a bag while his newfound "friends" go off in the woods to chase an elusive bird called a snipe toward him. What they actually do is head home or back to camp, laughing all the way, leaving the victim alone in the dark, literally holding the bag. One interesting aspect of this ritual is there is an actual bird called a snipe, and it is notoriously difficult to hunt due to its rapid and erratic flight patterns. It's actually the source of the word "sniper" because genuine snipe hunting requires excellent marksmanship.

It's frequently tough to tell if Tyler Chllder is leading us on a snipe hunt, i.e. playing with us or if we're genuinely hunting real snipes, i.e. he's being sincere. There's no doubt of the sincerity on "Nose on the Grindstone" where he reflects on words of wisdom his coal mining father gave him ("don't lie and don't steal / Keep your nose on the grindstone and out of the pills"). "Watch Out" is straightforward advice about how to avoid copperheads and mama bears. And "Tirtha Yatra," a song about eastern religion must be genuine because Childer is interested in Hinduism – check out the cover to "Country Squire" – and he made a spiritual quest to India earlier this year.

But "Eatin' Big Time" is so over the top with its $1,000 watches and Gold records piled to the ceiling, not to mention hunting wildlife from inside a mansion, that it has to be a satire of some of the excesses of our modern age. "Down Under" is flight of fancy at its finest as he sings about Australian wildlife with more than a bit of exaggeration. Koala bears don't really carry syphilis ("or chlamydia, what's the difference?") Nor are kangaroos actually deer evolved to be boxers.

There's genuine anger on "Bitin' List." He's spent some time compiling a list of people he intends to maul if he ever goes rabid and the song is addressed to the person in the number one spot on that list. It's too funny to take seriously, though.

Sometimes he can actually pursue both the real and the fictional bird at once. Although the almost-but-not-quite-title-track "Snipe Hunt" alludes to the prank ("And I sat on the hill like Jeremiah Johnson / I froze my dumb ass off all night), he ultimately enlarges his scope to encompass some of the disillusionment and insincerity he's faced on his artistic journey. "Poachers" seems to be about a couple of good old boys hunting illegally until he gets to the lines about how "His Papaw'd be rolling, I don't know where he strayed /. . . He's the one with the vid'ya of the coal mining gays" referencing Childers's 2023 LGBT friendly video (or "vid'ya" if you're from Louisa, Ky.) for "In Your Love."

And even on the serious songs, humor is never far below the surface. On "Tirtha Yatra" he says the Bhagavad-Gita changed his life, but he calls the Gita "just a chapter in a book 'bout a footbridge wide" (which is true) and calls himself a "Cousin-loving clubfooted . . .backwood searcher."

One of the few misfires, "Oneida" concerns a May – December romance about an older woman and a younger man. It's catchy, but more than a tad creepy when you think about it, since the yang half of this couple is not old enough to buy wine or get into the nightclub where his cougar croons. It might be more accurate to call it a February – December romance.

Although it's never been possible to pin the man down, Childers has often tackled one broad, main subject on his previous albums, i.e. racism on "Long Violent History," gospel music and traditional Christianity on "Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?" On this, his seventh studio album, Tyler takes aim at a wider variety of topics and hits the marks with remarkable consistency.