Big Rig, 'Crying In A Corn Maze'

If Ruston Kelly can call himself "dirt emo," then Big Rig's got a decent claim on country music's twee cousin "twangmo." Big Rig is Jen Twynn Payne, drummer/singer in The Courtneys. After the bubblegummy rock trio finished its third, still-unreleased album just before the pandemic, Payne taught herself the guitar and found a new musical partner in banjo picker Geoffo Reith. Her songs as Big Rig are short and sad, but lope along with a punky, clipped rhythm like you might expect from an emo kid raised on Elliott Smith and early Wilco. With the evocatively titled "Crying in a Corn Maze," Big Rig turns the tear-in-my-beer trope into a one-inch button affixed just-so to a denim jacket pulled tighter.

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