"Sugar and Joy shows there's a lot of life in the corner of roots music where playing loud and fast while also leaving room for slower, more nuanced songs is considered a great combination. Some of the Dead South's older contemporaries in the genre have moved into more elaborate, orchestrated work (hello, Avett Brothers) or focused on the improvisation side of their music (Greensky Bluegrass). So it's nice to hear an album that embraces the core tenets of 21st-century Americana (or Canadiana, in the Dead South's case) while still doing their own thing. Sugar and Joy is one of the most entertaining albums I've heard in 2019".