Catchy, fresh, crisp clever, reflective sharp indie with a country twang by Katie Crutchfield aka Waxahatchee, now forming a new group with her twin sister Allison, and supported by MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook. Jangly guitars, shared, swapped and close vocal harmonies and finely crafted songs about in a breezy collection of 13 numbers in just under 34 minutes. Opener Coast is a powerfully building, richly layered guitar driving number and lyrically sets a feel for the album - songs constantly on the move, filled with fleeting, vivid freeway and automobile images and changes of mood and setting. Perky standout single Heathcliff has a fabulous sharp opening lyric: “Call me the longhaired cat / In your window / Wait for you to get back I don’t miss you / I don’t think about us / It might be nothing / It’s just kinda serendipitous.” Wasteland is a slower, insightful, bittersweet number with Crutchfield’s voice clear as a bell: “Take a wrong turn somewhere / Call you Sunday / Say I'm losing it / I’m running hot on empty, / Firing off some wilful bottomline / Gave it everything I had, / I am hazmat, I am radioactive / Caustic car wreck, off the rails / And rude and ruining your life.” Hide also continues the theme with a slow-burn country-feel number: “You will listen now, you’re in the backseat / Carving your way out, muffle the heartbeat.” Other standouts include the beautiful jangle of Cherry Hard Candy and Avalanche, the pacy, beautifully harmonised Over Our Heads, the slower Angel Wings (“I ride down 29th / I delight in the spectrum of this yearning”), and the strutting yet also poignant You In Rehab: “Me and the sadness move /Laterally away from one another /Like you and me /But it gets bad /When I think about you in rehab”). A fabulous new combination of seasoned musicians coming today in this finely crafted, catchy and insightful debut. Out on ANTI Records.
Sisters Katie and Allison Crutchfield
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