WThe poet of the pillowcase, Leon Bridges, promoted it Gold digger sound album in 2021, he told the Guardian He wanted to be one of the few black artists making country music. “I just need time,” he said. Well, time is always running out, and Black Country has since gone mainstream without Bridges' involvement.

A Bar Song (Tipsy) by black country star Shaboozey was the American song of the summer. After 12 weeks it is still number 1 on the US singles chart and is also at the top billboardhas been on the US Hot Country Songs chart for four months. Shaboozey is the only black man to top the country charts in its 80-year history – Lil Nas' Old Town Road in February.

So, for the uninformed: Bridges takes a detour along country roads Leon might look like galloping after a runaway train. That would be untrue and unfair. Bridges was born in Atlanta and grew up in Fort Worth. This music is just as important to him as soul or R&B. He's earned a few stripes over the years, collaborating with other Texas icons like Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert, as well as Khruangbin on the beautiful Texas Sun, to create songs that could be described as country to varying degrees.

To LeonBridges has hardened his wings. It is a majestic confection that draws heavily on soul, country and folk, but owes them nothing. He mixes it all into what he calls his “gumbo,” a simmering blend of Southern sounds, using music as a means to connect his past to his present, letting lost loves and hometown nostalgia permeate.

So much great pop is about escape or transformation. It promises who you were yesterday – or who you were a few minutes ago, before you heard it The Song – can be completely different from the person you will be tomorrow. Leon is an excellent collection that shows a man approaching middle age driving through his old neighborhoods after escaping and reflecting on these feelings. It's a butterfly remembering what it felt like to be a caterpillar.

Befitting songs composed around summer memories, there are inconsistencies. We get at least three “First Love” songs, and they all seem to be about different girls, one of whom he may not have even met yet. It doesn't matter. In his vivid, fractured vignettes, Bridges nestles between the notes that other singers rush through, trying to finish their stories.

The curfews are constantly repeating themselves, reminding us that summer is never as endless as it promises. Still, That's What I Love (“Louisiana Funk, Second Line Jumping / Umbrellas in the Air, When There's No Rain”) positively sways with the joys of the season. “Panther City” proves it's not just about soft-life soundtracks, as Bridges boldly blends country with new wave while singing about crackheads, sex workers and Nintendo 64s.

Perhaps because of his maturity or because he remembers more chaste days, Bridges is less horny than usual (though Ghetto Honeybee kindly offers, “Let me whisper crazy things on the phone”). As always with religious soul singers, it's never quite clear how this side of Bridges squares up with the comparative piety of songs like “When a Man Cries” and “God Loves Everyone.” And it's a shame that his musings about the interior don't find more time to weigh in on the politics of our time after he sang so gracefully about George Floyd in 2020's “Sweeter.”

But Leon is not a puzzle to be solved. More than most, it's just a suite of exquisitely expressed emotions, and the way Bridges sings makes it all feel inviolably real and true. It doesn't have to be true. His songs are magnificent, neither overtly committed to the past nor distractingly forward-looking, all carried to heaven by that beguiling, churchy voice.