Toby Keith never stopped working in the 2010s, but by the end of the decade, he seemed kind of adrift, lost in one too many songs about alcohol and taking a full six years to deliver a sequel to his 2015 album
35 MPH Town. The time away evidently recharged the singer if
Peso in My Pocket is any indication. Lively, funny, and brawny in a way he hasn't been since his hot streak in the 2000s,
Peso in My Pocket is filled with songs so lean that it takes a moment to realize that
Keith covers a lot of musical ground here. "Oklahoma Breakdown" opens the record with a bit of nostalgic swagger, providing a keynote for an album where he comes to terms with middle age but still plays with the vigor of a younger man. He spends much of the album looking back upon the "Days I Shoulda Died," concludes that "Growing Up Is a Bitch," and decides that he likes the "Old Me Better." Within those three songs,
Keith plays a gussied-up cowboy ballad, dabbles with wanderlust in the vein of
Bruce Springsteen, and swings through a jaunty blues, each different style sounding natural in his hands.
Keith even tackles breezy, electronic-inflected pop on the breezy "Old School," a move that doesn't seem like pandering as its romanticization of the small town suits the album's nostalgia. If he pushes this backwards-looking button a bit too hard with the concluding "Happy Birthday America" -- an exercise in both-sides patriotism that lands with a thud -- such joyous moments as the two-stepping rocker "Thunderbird" make up for such missteps and help turn
Peso in My Pocket into
Toby Keith's best record in years. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
