First and foremost, Ashley McBryde is a country storyteller. And like many a great storyteller, she takes the most direct route possible to getting her tale across. Her organic, lean-and-mean approach is in service of a sound somewhere between reflective troubadour and neo-outlaw, and nothing stands in the way of the worlds she brings alive in her songs. She grounds herself in finding salvation in the small stuff (on her 2017 debut smash "A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega") or in her recollection of a late, beloved dad's ways (in "A Bible and a .44"), and these reveries come across with an intensity that stays with you.