The artist formerly known as Sturgill Simpson has always been an outlaw, the kind who kicks open the bar door and asks why the jukebox keeps playing the same 6 songs. With Mutiny After Midnight, released under his alter ego Johnny Blue Skies, he’s taking it a step further and kicking the whole damn jukebox down the stairs.

Luckily we get to dance on the wreckage. Dance to a record that is a horny late night groove throw down. Equal parts outlaw country, disco, and psychedelic experiment, we find an LP full of bar-band verve when the clock is calling closing time. The music you put on when the lights are dim and the conversation turns strange.

With his backing band The Dark Clouds we get a class in old school rhythm. The songs move, and make you move, but not like the suits in Nashville would like it. It is loose, hypnotic, as much a jam session as a tightly constructed studio product. The guitars scintillate while stretching grooves, the keys swell and the drums and bass are locked in with the swagger you have on a Friday night when everyone gets paid and everyone wants to get laid.

The lyrics zig zag between frustration at the political landscape in America, keeping your dark side in check, and the half horny musings of a midnight philosopher. We find a broken America, full of bruised bodies begging for freedom, recounted with Sturgill’s wry humor and biting criticism. His sincerity is that irreverent shrug, it never feels preachy and that is the magic.

This is an artist who understands absurdity, he can take topics and phrasing that make the Music Row pundits cringe and turn them into an invitation to party. It is rugged charisma, provocative but playful, that has you chuckling as you’re cutting the linoleum carpet.

Critics may call out that the album feels unfinished. Those critics don’t understand that is why it works, why it breathes. It is trying to be alive, not perfect.

Johnny Blue Skies is going up against the machine, eschewing the trap of chasing algorithms and meticulous branding to make a dystopian disco protest joint. It is a greasy, naughty, sometimes deranged manifesto about sex, drugs, and what it really means to be an American.

Not the album America asked for, but maybe the one it needs.