In 2020, Waxahatchee went from indie darling to alt-country hero with the release of the excellent Holy Cloud. The album, which became one of our favorite albums of ConsequenceSongwriter Katie Crutchfield's first 15 years were her fifth under the Waxahatchee moniker. In many ways, though, it felt like the debut of something entirely new, as if Crutchfield had stripped away internal and external expectations of what she should be and leaned fully into the artist she truly was. Now with tigers BloodCrutchfield seeks to avoid the proverbial post-war sophomore crisis.Saint Cloud It was his career and, wow, does he do just that?
tiger blood doubles the epiphanies of Saint Cloud to surprising results. The project delivers another helping of warm, mid-paced, intensely melodic indie rock, infused with Lucinda Williams-style southern and country hospitality. That tone sets the stage for remarkably honest and surprisingly small-scale tales, in which Crutchfield depicts snapshots of her lived experience as a sober, relatively quiet artist in her 30s. It only serves to state what was already evident: Crutchfield is an excellent composer, an excellent performer, and an excellent storyteller.
The lead single, “Right Back to It”, made this evident from the beginning, allaying any fans' fears (or Crutchfield herself) had that Saint Cloud It was kind of a cool coincidence. Backed by soft banjo, the song examines familiarity, reflecting Crutchfield's experience of coming home to the same person night after night, as well as his tendency to be suspicious of such stillness and stability. “I let my mind go crazy / I don't know why I do it,” he sings. “But you just adapt/Like an endless song/If I can keep up/We'll get back to it in no time.”
These intersections of small daily struggles and quiet moments of truth are continually woven throughout the 12 tracks of tiger blood, whether it be the depiction of codependency as it relates to dealing with addiction in “365” or an image of a quiet date on Kansas’ only lake in “Lone Star Lake.” Sure, they're love songs in the sense that they're really about love, but Crutchfield grounds them in reality, resisting rose-tinted theatrics and instead portraying the delicate nuance of maintaining a successful relationship. It is less Romeo and Juliet and more the Before trilogy.
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Crutchfield's reflections on self-maintenance aren't limited to romance, either. Take for example the magnificent penultimate cut “The Wolves,” which chronicles the mundane and constant effort it takes to keep the ghosts of the past at bay. “It doesn't calm me down / You know I'm in a hurry, baby / I miss a lot of good things,” she sings between metaphors of closed doors while songs on the radio forcefully resurface memories. Whether it's sobriety, latent habits, or old mistakes, Crutchfield knows it's not easy to tune out.
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