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Apr 21, 2022 By Caleb Campbell

Next month, Nashville-based alt-country singer/songwriter Zach Willdee is set to debut his new album, Heart Ain’t That Tame. At his core, Willdee revives the old soul of outlaw country, taking inspiration from well-worn touchstones like Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings and marrying them with the plaintive storytelling flair of troubadours like John Prine or Steve Earle. Today, ahead of the record’s release, Willdee has shared a new single from the album, “Shadow Riders,” premiering with Under the Radar.

Though Willdee’s music often feels married to a vision of true-blue outlaw country, “Shadow Riders” adds new cinematic flair to his style, evoking the dusty cowboy locales of old westerns. Willdee’s rumbling baritone is coated in shadow and grit while the instrumental is colored with swells of reverb, and keening pedal steel, adding a sense of drama and steady power to the track. As the song slowly winds towards a climactic finish, Willdee also deploys a standout fiery guitar solo, completing the mood for Willdee’s dark cinematic western.

As Willdee explains, “This song has a fun backstory… I bought a leather biker jacket from a friend’s vintage shop in Nashville. There was a patch on the back that said Shadow Riders and I couldn’t help but look up the origins of said patch. Turns out it was from a western movie starring Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott. So, naturally, I went and watched the movie, and ended up writing this song about that as well as my personal experiences out in the country/woods. It’s not a theme song by any means…but that’s what sparked the idea.”

Check out the song below. Heart That Ain’t Tame is out everywhere on May 6th.