Rolling Stone restored some of the rock cred it had lost as a result of that Kim Kardashian cover when Rolling Stone Country posted the audio and backstory of indie country artist Will Hoge’s “Still a Southern Man,” which is off the charts in every way—politically, emotionally and musically.

The track is not on Hoge’s latest LP, Small Town Dreams (Cumberland Records), which came out in April. He wrote it, Joseph Hudak writes, as the debate over flying the Confederate battle flag reached fever pitch in the wake of the June 17 massacre in Charleston, which compelled him to work through his own conflict in the studio. Recorded in a single night at venerable RCA Studio A in Nashville, the song, Hudak points out, is a ferocious bit of rock & roll, pushed along by slashing guitars and Hoge's defiant vocal. "There's an old flag waving overhead/and I used to think it meant one thing," he sings. “Now I know it's just a hammer driving nails in the coffin of a long dead land.”

You’ve gotta hear this song.