Waxahatchee has released one of the early contenders for album of the year. Tigers Blood is out now on ANTI- Records. On Tigers Blood we continue to see the wonderful evolution as Katie Crutchfield who emerges as a powerhouse – an ethnologist of the self – forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses.
Saint Cloud was a breakthrough album for Waxahatchee, and despite being released in the height of the pandemic it entered #1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart & Top 10 on the Emerging Artist chart. It was a welcome musical escape for many and cemented her status as an important voice in the indie-Americana scene. Now with Tigers Blood we see Crutchfield dig even deeper, the result is a complex and beautiful album that is sure to find a special place in people’s hearts once again.
‘Right Back to It’ is ‘Tigers Blood’’s lead single. A nod to country duets like Gram and Emmylou, winding over a steadfast banjo from Phil Cook. Together, Crutchfield and Lenderman harmonize on the chorus: “I’ve been yours for so long/We come right back to it/I let my mind run wild/Don’t know why I do it/But you just settle in/Like a song with no end.” Crutchfield says it’s the first real love song she’s ever written.
The song ‘Bored’ opens with blase drum beats from Spencer Tweedy that crash under Crutchfield as she throws her voice high: “I can get along/ My spine’s a rotted two by four/Barely hanging on/My benevolence just hits the floor.” Lenderman’s scuzzy riffs and Nick Bockrath’s climbing pedal steel add power to the album’s most ‘Southern Rock’ a la Drive-By Truckers moment.
‘365’ is a story of recognition told from a hard-won place of self-acceptance/forgiveness. Crutchfield initially started writing it for Wynonna Judd, with whom she has written and performed in the past, until the lyrics started hitting closer and closer to home. The writer Annie Ernaux says, “writing is to fight forgetting.” Like Lucinda Williams, Crutchfield’s lyrics are memoir. Throughout ‘Tigers Blood’ Crutchfield is addressing a “you,” but the ‘you’ in ‘365’ evokes raw closeness, vulnerability. “Ya ain’t had much luck but grace is/In the eye of the beholder/And I had my own ideas but/I carried you on my shoulders, anyways.” ‘365’ is essentially ‘Tigers Blood’’s aria about addiction, with little to no accompaniment to Crutchfield’s voice. Her backing band is hushed, as if the spotlight’s coming down on her, alone on the stage, giving her testimony. Crutchfield slings her voice with arresting precision, reaching its highest harmony on the whole album. “So when you kill, I kill/And when you ache, I ache/And we both haunt this old lifeless town/And when you fail, I fail/ When you fly, I fly/And it’s a long way to come back down.” ‘365’ circles back to the beginning of ‘Tigers Blood,’ where Crutchfield’s words ring clear as a bell. Album opener “3 Sisters” starts with Crutchfield singing over hymn-like piano chords: “I pick you up inside a hopeless prayer/I see you beholden to nothing/I make a living crying it ain’t fair/And not budging.” ‘Tigers Blood’ is Crutchfield at her most confident and resilient. Staring
straight at the truth, forgiving but not forgetting, not batting an eye.
ACCLAIM FOR TIGERS BLOOD
“Katie Crutchfield’s voice is the centerpiece of her music as Waxahatchee. It’s shaky in a way that feels resilient…She’s finding herself on Tigers Blood. You can hear the confidence shining through” – NPR
“a record that feels like it’s going to be one of 2024’s landmark releases” – Rolling Stone
“a fiery and biting country-rock foot-stomper that allows Crutchfield to channel some serious had-it-up-to-here attitude” – New York Times
“Crutchfield elevates Waxahatchee to a fortified, admirable form on a new album that’s as immediate as the all-timer lead single” Right Back To It – Pitchfork
“Katie Crutchfield’s band follows its acclaimed 2020 album with a record of vivid, poetic songwriting and rootsy musical color…all a fan of her previous album could hope for, extending her hot streak as a songwriter while adding a few twists” – Wall Street Journal
“It feels like Crutchfield is making the music that she was always meant to make… These songs seem like they have always been around, filled with details that will leave your head spinning and your heart wrenching” – Stereogum
“Some of the best alt-country of the decade” – Paste Magazine
“Crutchfield is a singular talent and voice, and her new album, Tiger’s Blood, solidifies that status” – GQ
“Crutchfield has her feet firmly planted in this sonic universe, and she doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Collaborating once again with producer Brad Cook, Crutchfield has found her sweet spot — a cozy place to land that suits the songs she’s been writing lately” – No Depression
“Crutchfield’s voice — with its rich country vibrato, its confiding just-us-talking hiccup and twitch, its bursts of punk rock agitation — is in full bloom here, as sure and vibrant as she’s ever sounded”
-Aquarium Drunkard
Tigers Blood Tracklisting
1. 3 Sisters
2. Evil Spawn
3. Ice Cold
4. Right Back to It
5. Burns Out at Midnight
6. Bored
7. Lone Star Lake
8. Crimes of the Heart
9. Crowbar
10. 365
11. The Wolves
12. Tigers Blood
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