Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives Space Junk 2025

Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives have been together for over twenty years. They have made at least twelve records. They are essentially a country band, but that is a pigeon hole a bit too tight for these guys. All four members are virtuoso players that can play anything that comes their way. All four are in-demand studio and touring musicians and have played in more bands and on more records than you can count. Their moniker is both cute and funny, and very accurate. There really aren't enough superlatives.

This record will probably disappoint some of their die hard country fans. It's got some country sounds on it, but it shares more in common with Los Straightjackets and the Ventures than with country music. It's an instrumental rock record, and it is amazing. Stuart and Kenny Vaughn are both super hot guitarists, and bassist Chris Scruggs could probably play all the parts himself, since he plays guitar, mandolin, steel guitar and drums. Harry Stinson is a top-tier drummer. They are all songwriters, and good ones, so these instrumentals are beautifully crafted. There are no weak tracks.

This one could have bumped several from my top ten list for 2025, and probably should have, but I just discovered it a few days ago.

On Marty's web site, there's this quote: "We thought the world needed a fresh instrumental album by a pretty good band, so we composed twenty instrumentals and took them to the microphones." Pretty good band? Humility is nice, but Marty Stuart knows better.