There are two kinds of relationships with country music. You either love it or you hate it. I have tended toward the latter, but here we have Slidell-native Amanda Henkel—definitely country—and I cannot get enough of her voice, lyrics, and band. Every time I turn on her banjo-strumming ballads with stories of sadness, lyrics full of hope, or bouncy rhythms, I think I could listen to this while doing just almost anything. The eponymous EP is not amazing because it’s a cross of New Orleans jazz and Ibiza ambient or the Aboriginal didgeridoo. Rather, its success is due to her adept application of taking what she has and knows, then working it to perfection. She countrifies Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride,” and its chorus could be her mantra—”Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride / Nobody’s gonna slow me down”—and continue to propel Henkel higher and higher.