"Aaron Lewis went country at the dawn of the 2010s, so by the time he got around to delivering State I'm In in 2019, he knew what worked for him and what didn't. Namely, he stripped away the angst left lingering from Staind -- "Reconsider" could be rejiggered to sound like a brooding power ballad, yet its arrangement here isn't quite so heavy -- and decided to put all his chips on a swaggering Waylon Jennings cosplay. To that end, producer Buddy Cannon turns out to be an invaluable collaborator, capable of re-creating the sound of Jennings at his '70s peak. Cannon makes State I'm In sound lean and mean, purposefully conjuring ghosts of honky tonk heroes".