Tyler Bryant & the Shakedown is a blues-rock band from Tennessee that has released some of the best rock albums over the past couple of years.

My introduction to the band came in high school when I researched the next guitar amp I would buy. I had heard of the brand “Orange,” which makes guitar amplifiers that legendary blues band “ZZ Top” uses, I looked into the “Orange” website and saw a band called “Tyler Bryant & the Shakedown” who also use “Orange” amps.

The first album I listened to was their self-titled 2017 album, “Tyler Bryant And The Shakedown.” I was immediately hooked on the band’s sound.

My personal favorite song from the album was and still is “Ramblin’ Bones.”

The song is played on a resonator with a slide, with the guitar in an open tuning. An “open tuning” is when a guitar is tuned to a chord instead of the traditional “E-A-D-G-B-E” tuning in which most songs are played. Slide guitar and open tunings are most commonly used in blues songs like this one and create an awesome down-home, swampy feel.

Another highlight of the album is “Easy Target,” the guitar is super overdriven and the song is laced with tasty riffs. The song delivers a message about the importance of telling the truth because lies can come back to bite you in ways that are not always obvious.

Tyler Bryant is an awesome blues guitar player who deserves more recognition than he is currently getting. His incredible tone lets him solo with ease.

In 2019 another phenomenal rock album, “Truth And Lies,” hit the records, showing more of the band’s range.

The band is really good about changing up the tempo and feel of their songs to make all of them seem unique. There is a pretty large contrast on this album from songs like “On To The Next”, which is a pretty “hard-rockin” tune from start to finish, to songs like “Out There,” which is a more soft-spoken poetry-esque song with a very simple backing track.

The feel of those two songs combine to create the last song on the album, “Couldn’t See The Fire.”

“Couldn’t See The Fire” has a more full instrumental section but maintains the vocal style from “Out There” combining the heavier guitar sound found in the rest of the album.

The band released an album in 2020 called “Pressure,” which highlighted the band’s hard rock/metal tendencies.

While songs like “Fuel” seems like a call back to some of their earlier songs; the song “Wildside” feels like a revamped heavier version of an early 2000s country song and is one of the best songs on the album.

Their latest release, “Shake the Roots,” came out in September of 2022 and is probably my favorite piece of their work since their self-titled album of 2017. “Shake the Roots” is a really fun amalgamation of bluegrass and heavy guitar riffs. The band is really excellent at mixing classic blues with new metal to create wonderful songs. Tyler Bryant is an awesome guitarist and vocalist who is backed up by a spectacular band.

Tyler Bryant & the Shakedown are definitely worth a listen, my two favorite albums of theirs are “Tyler Bryant And The Shakedown” and “Shake the Roots.” Both deserve a listen in full. I like to binge their albums, listening to all of the songs from an album in one sitting, this is by far the best way to experience their music.