Waxahatchee
Tiger’s Blood
Anti
Like so many, 2020’s Saint Cloud is what made me a Waxahatchee stan. That album saw Katie Crutchfield veer into Americana and set down the alternative sound of 2017’s Out in the Storm. Though she had always been a skilled and poetic songwriter, Saint Cloud saw the pretentiousness of earlier lyrics give way to emotionally honest songwriting that is less self-conscious but still boasts a robust vocabulary. In the best ways, Tiger’s Blood echoes Saint Cloud while also being something entirely its own. Tiger’s Blood’s sharp lyrics find a songwriter hitting her stride, less and less limited by youthful self-consciousness.
Unlike St. Cloud, this isn’t a meditation on any one theme but rather glimpses into scenes of a full and colorful life. The first single, “Right Back to It,” explores the ebbs and flows of a long-term partnership, where sometimes she needs her partner’s help to get “right back to it.” The sharp, quick rush of lyrics on “Bored” charts introspection but without any of the melancholy from her earlier work. “Lone Star Lake” paints an easy reconciliation in which one partner is “always a little lost.” Each glimpse is as vivid as the last, all scored with an Americana sound that makes her Alabama roots explicit. The album has all that which makes Crutchfield’s music beautiful, special, and worth a repeat.
Crutchfield herself talks about her fear of writing songs from a place of happiness and love, her fear that only the tortured can make good art. Tiger’s Blood is proof that songs about being a happy but messy person can be appealing, meaningful, and beautiful without being saccharine.
Album art is by Molly Matalon.
