Ruthless is the tenth studio album by American country music artist Gary Allan, released on June 25, 2021, by EMI Nashville. It is Allan's first album of new material in over eight years since Set You Free was released in 2013.
Contents
History
Between 2015 and 2020, Allan released a number of singles that did not appear on albums due to their poor chart performance. In May 2021, he previewed the track "Temptation" online and announced that his new album would be coming out in June.
Allan co-produced the album with Tony Brown, Mark Wright, Greg Droman, and Jay Joyce. He recorded over thirty songs across multiple sessions between 2013 and 2020 and selected thirteen of them to make up the album. The last songs were done in January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the musicians who played on Allan's 1999 album, Smoke Rings in the Dark, also contributed.
On the creation of the album, Allan said:This is a montage of everything I have done since my last album. It's what I love. I remain influenced by the '90s—as well as the '80s. Twenty-six tracks were cut for this album. Then I went back to the studio and recorded three or four more tracks. Then I returned for two more. From each of these many sessions, I stripped out the cool stuff I wanted on the record.The album's lead single, "Waste of a Whiskey Drink", was released in digitally in July 2020, and impacted radio on September 14, 2020.
The album was released on vinyl on October 22, 2021.
Critical reception
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave Ruthless three and a half stars out of five and described the album as "steeped in the rocking country of the 1990s", while also pointing out Allan's "older...but not tired" sound.
Jim Malec of Slant Magazine gave the album one and a half stars out of five. Malec called the album a "casually sexist exercise in mediocrity" by criticizing his portrayal of women as nothing more than objects of the male gaze.
Personnel
Credits are adapted from Tidal.
Technical
Jay Joyce – production, mixing, recording
Greg Droman – production, mixing
Gary Allan – production
Tony Brown – production
Mark Wright – production
Steve Marcantonio – mixing, recording
Seth Morton – assistant engineer, assistant recording
Jimmy Mansfield – assistant engineer, assistant recording
Jason Hall – engineer