When he’s not making great beef jerky, he’s making great music. Lyal Strickland is a farmer by trade and by utmost inner passion. Born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks, his brand of folk not only comes from the heart, but he also weaves the individualized theme of consciousness of the farm, as well as in the small town where he had grown up, and ultimately, the rest of the world sweeping about and throughout him. This empathetic, world-weary introspection had deservedly placed the singer-songwriter on the map with 2007’s acoustic album, Wellfed & High Strung, and a second release in 2009’s So Many Incidents. Jump forward another six years and, finally, you have 2015’s Balanced on Barbed Wire, a brand new musical offering detailing the small town life in Buffalo from Strickland’s own “first-person folk” perspective, now set to a finer tune.