Country music has maintained its status as a cultural force for more than half a century by now, but it’s easy for country purists to look at the current state of the genre and despair. Country stations and charts are dominated primarily by overproduced, hook-heavy pop songs with just an ounce of streamlined twang thrown in for good measure—a long way off from the evocative working class storytelling that defines the genre for so many, myself included.

Luckily, if you crave new country music but don’t dig the streamlined sounds of Blake Shelton and Florida Georgia Line, there’s an entire world of alternative country waiting to be discovered. These artists draw influence from tried-and-true country classics—from outlaw country to the Bakersfield sound—while incorporating new ideas and perspectives into their music, preserving the do-it-yourself aesthetic that so often defines the genre. Here are 8 alt-country artists you should have on your radar.

Sturgill Simpson

Sturgill Simpson just sounds like country music's savior. The Kentucky native’s drawling vocals recall the iconic croon of Waylon Jennings, and he has the songwriting chops to match his immediately iconic vocals. His songs covers some familiar territory concerning the outlaw lifestyle, with an added focus on all-too-relatable financial woes, though he tends to focus on psychedelic drugs over Waylon’s honky-tonk whiskeys. This decidedly modern psych-country approach meshes astoundingly well with Simpson’s timeless guitar-based sound.

Lindi Ortega

Each Lindi Ortega song is overflowing with melodrama that somehow never feels excessive. Credit her weepy gospel vocals or deliberately spare production for this rare balance of emotion and musical intelligence. Ortega has the voice, and her band has a simple yet reliable sound, creating a dynamic that might even recall country royalty as illustrious as Johnny Cash and his Tennessee Three. The Canadian crooner wears her status as a Nashville outsider like a badge of honor on songs like “Tin Star,” favoring tales of lonely folks and lost dreams at scummy dive bars over pop country's more party-centric lyrical cliches.

Jason Isbell

Jason Isbell got his start penning songs for Drive-by Truckers but only truly found his voice as a solo artist. His first few albums hewed closer to southern rock than country—in large part due to Isbell’s lyrical focus on his home state of Alabama—but his past two albums traded in guitar distortion for folksy emotional candor. His 2013 LP Southeastern especially is a songwriting triumph, filled with confessional ballads like “Live Oak” and “Traveling Alone” about what it means to hit bottom and work you way back up again.

Steve Earle

After more than three decades releasing albums, Steve Earle might be considered the grandfather of alt-country, but that title implies he’s no longer relevant or vital. Earle is as impressive for his longevity as for the actual quality of his work, which seamlessly blends rock and country influences. Earle uses these genres, plus stray bits of folk, bluegrass and even Celtic influences, to create rollicking good time records that find time to explore classic country themes as well as personal issues, from lonely ramblers searching for a home to Earle’s own experiences overcoming drug addiction.

Jay Farrar

Like Steve Earle, Jay Farrar is another of this fringe genre’s pioneers, primarily for his work as front-man for the influential band Uncle Tupelo, cobbling together great country music using unlikely remnants of hardcore and post-punk influences. But his diverse contributions to the genre continue today with his equally impressive band Son Volt. His inimitable vocals anchor a shimmering country sound founded on evocative guitar interplay and lyrics that blend country yarn-spinning with opaque alt-rock poetry. Son Volt’s mastery of this hybrid genre means they're one of few bands that sound equally at home playing lovely steel guitar ballads and face-melting electric guitar riffs.

Horse Feathers 

Portland-based band Horse Feathers plays an understated brand of indie-folk-country that may be the perfect antithesis to pop country's overblown redneck schmaltz. Atmospheric, unexpected orchestral flourishes compliment singer-songwriter Justin Ringle’s acoustic reveries, boasting all the quiet beauty of a still winter morning in the mountains. Their commitment to complex yet spare Americana music even led them to record their 2014 album, So It Is With Us, in a rural Oregon barn.

The Avett Brothers

Scott and Seth Avett build their sound around bluegrass instrumentation, heavily focused on string instrument interplay as often dense as it is weepy. Their crisp but never overwrought sound finds room for many more genres beyond bluegrass, including jangly power-pop, indie rock, ragtime, emotionally intelligent folk music and, of course, country. Their sharp melodic instincts help them pen songs that encompass all these disparate genres without ever seeming forced, filtered through a refreshingly subversive attitude that might almost be described as punk, minus all the distortion.

Craig Finn

Snarling talk-singer Craig Finn is best known as the singer and chief songwriter for defunct Minneapolis indie rockers The Hold Steady. With that band, Finn created a sound that made room for arena rock grandeur as well as intricate stories, with a focus on Midwestern nobodies that owes a lot to the heartland rock of Bruce Springsteen. Without the dense wall of sound behind him, Finn’s literary storytelling and twinkling guitar-work begin to sound suspiciously like alt-country, boasting enough emotionally stirring songwriting and haunting steel guitar twang to please any fan of the genre.