Album Review: ‘Memories and Empties’ by Colter Wall

Colter Wall’s 2025 release, Memories and Empties, is a bold embrace of traditional country and western sounds while showcasing raw instrumentals. 

The album’s thematic core consists of heartache, love, nostalgia, and a hands-on work life. Wall’s storytelling signature strength employs simple yet powerful lyricism. His distinctive voice evokes a range of emotion and colourful landscape imagery. The record aims for less of a modern reinvention of country music. Instead it reminds us why older country stylings can still embody soul and impactful artistry in the 21st century. 

The title track and “Living By the Hour” convey realness rather than romanticization. They epitomize what feels like Wall’s quest for raw relatability in this album. “1,800 Miles” and “Like the Hills are key standouts that feel close to Wall, especially as an artist adamant not to abandon his personal upbringing.

“1,800 Miles” is set to a constant rhythmic guitar sound as the foundation for the two-step groove, with a fiddle overlay. This vintage country homage communicates a strong personal message from Wall. He sings “if I ever was for sale, I never sold … it’s 1,800 miles from Music Row.” The meaning of this line is that profit is distant from Wall’s central goal of showcasing his classic country authenticity. Wall’s effort to stay true to western roots is perhaps also reflective of his family legacy. Wall’s father is former Saskatchewan premier and prominent rancher, Brad Wall. This opening track sets the tone for the rest of the album. It is an honest culmination of his heritage and identity, rejecting exclusively modern packaging and shine. 

“Like the Hills” is a more delicate track. It still features the guitar and fiddle, but with a waltz-like rhythm. Wall pays tribute to his background in rural life and land. His lyricism depicts a longing for simpler times and home amid an evolving environment. The emotional themes of nostalgia and connection to open prairie lands left me resonating with his memory of a rudimentary, yet beautiful picture. 

Alongside these songs closely connected to Wall’s roots and rural settings, the album also features more broadly relatable tracks that focus on the universal feelings of heartbreak and love.

“The Longer You Hold On” puts on an intimately melancholy hat. It features a gently picked guitar and subtle steel guitar. The track is about holding onto a fading relationship, unable to let go because of love. The common nature of the story within this track makes it memorable.The tense sadness of this uncertain situation is communicated as slow devastation, instead of a dramatized heartbreak.

The song “Back to Me” uses a tender acoustic sound to evoke warmth through a folk-country melody. Wall frames marriage as a place where love endures through ups and downs and takes on the meaning of home. This track serves as a reminder of the contrasts of hardship and connection embedded in love. And it’s done in a grounding, easy to listen to song. 

Although the above tracks were personal standouts, the rest of the songs that complete this album each offer individually rich textures and identifiable stories. As a whole, listening to Memories and Empties felt like a peaceful breath between the bustle of everyday life. This sense of peace is created not only in the gently moving slow form, but also as upbeat, pick-me-up rhythms. The album feels like an ode to the beauty of prairie land, and impresses upon you that simple doesn’t mean surface level. Wall opts for heartfelt storytelling that is calm, yet achingly impactful, instead of a loud and dramatic portrayal.

This newest album by Colter Wall impresses in the realm of musical storytelling. If in search of traditional country sounds, both the upbeat and the slowly unfolding, Memories and Empties is worth a listen.