Tuesday, December 10, 2024

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 16 Waxahatchee - Tiger's Blood

 

It must be Spring. Waxahatchee's Tiger's Blood has arrived to officially decree that we can start enjoying life again. Pack up your cadillac. Get on the highway and put your foot on the accelerator and head off in search of visceral life experience.


As the last paragraph suggests, Tiger's Blood  is very much an all American record. But hey we've all seen the movies now an have some understanding of the rituals of and proceedures these things follow what it looks like and how it's meant to feel.

Waxahatchee, or Katie Crutchfield, as I imagine she signs herself in on motel ledgers, understands all this. She's probably been working her way up to her definitive album statement for a while and I'm saying this might as well be it..I'm no longer in the mood to argue at length whether this is a step forward to maturity from previous efforts like Saint Cloud and I Walked With You a Ways. This certainly feels like a moment of arrival. 

She's been an artist worth celebrate for a while. Her voice is still rather more Indie Gal, than the full Emmylou ephiphany but I always liked Indie Gal. In Lone Star Lake she's posted a signature statement. But then this is an album where nothing really disappoints. It's a record to crank up, put your feet up on a stool and drift away. Or else get into your car if you have one of those.

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