Rapid Fire Reviews: Singer-Songwriters with Plains, Bill Callahan & Natalia Lafourcade

I Walked With You A Ways - Plains

Plains is the new collaborative project of Waxahatchee aka Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson and it just felt like it was gonna be good. It's hard to explain exactly why because it's not like the singles were completely blowing me away or anything. It just seemed like a half hour of good country folk music from these two would do great things for the soul, and that's exactly what happened. The images you might be conjuring of country folk aren't even the limitations of this record anyway, while there are plenty of wonderful harmonizing and forlorn metaphors the second track is a ripping rock song with a guitar solo bridge that doesn't sound out of place at all in the tracklist. The record is just remarkably consistent with a sonic palette that is simple but rewarding and vocal performances that shine throughout. I wouldn't even say it reminds me of some older Waxahatchee projects that I liked quite a bit for how much her vocal eccentricities took over. In fact, they feel much more familiar with general folk stylings but that's just a testament to how good the performances are throughout. I guess if there's a complaint about the record it's just that, the scope. But the pair of Katie and Jess feel well aware of what they're shooting for and the tracklist keeps in scant on purpose, it's a creative decision I wish many other artists had the forethought and self-reflection to make. I really am happy to report that this is just a flat-out enjoyable collection of songs and I'd love to hear these two continue to collaborate again at some point in the future. 7.5/10

YTILAER - Bill Callahan

I've always had a soft spot for Bill Callahan. Whether as Smog or as a solo artist he's just been doing his thing for a very long time and kind of refusing to adapt or change it for anyone. So even though I'm not exactly clambering for every single moment of every single one of his albums I appreciate what he does and I even enjoyed a few of the singles he dropped in the lead-up to this record here. Obviously, with an artist like this, there's a level of indulgence that you should kind of expect coming into the record, and Reality certainly meets that. It's less the record's total hour-long runtime and more the repeated 6-minute songs that can start to wear down, particularly with tracks like Planets and Naked Souls that feel like they overstay their welcome a bit despite having good songs at their core. One of those tracks, Coyotes really grabbed me as a single with it's great songwriting and even better vocal performance and it's still my favorite track on the entire album. I was hoping for a few more high-end highlights to emerge than actually did, but this record is much more of a lackadaisical wander through familiar sonic Bill Callahan motifs and ultimately I'm okay with that. The album didn't have to be anything extravagant or drastically different to be enjoyable and the results are just that, enjoyable. 6.5/10

De Todas las Flores - Natalia Lafourcade

While Natalia is certainly a singer-songwriter, when I came around to her music she was almost more like a curator to me. She was an astounding performer who would gather other great musicians and vocalists around her to reimagine Mexican folk songs, many of which I wasn't familiar with in the first place, it was great. But I did always ponder the day when she would return to writing her own original studio material, if that would come with a new direction in sound and if I would find the writing nearly as enjoyable. Along comes De Todas las Flores, her first album of original material in years, to answer all of those questions. Firstly if you're expecting some of the lavish instrumentation you may have come to expect from Natalia's Musas or Un Canto por Mexico series you should know the presentation here is much more reserved. You'll hear a lot of the strings you're used to but rarely are they paired with much else as this really does feel like Natalia's own album through and through. It isn't all that way however as a wonderful moment on Pasan los dias comes specifically from some unexpected keys rushing into the song around their halfway point. That's another thing with these tracks the runtime is not afraid to be as long as it needs to be for Natalia to say everything she wants to say, which means there are a lot of 5 and 6-minute cuts in the mix. The time she takes does end up paying off though as there's a pretty involved concept to the album that had me translating refrains over and over as they popped up in these songs. Generally speaking the second half shifts into a much livelier sound with a deeper instrumental palette than the stark opener, which is in line with the record's emotional concept and how it develops. I can't say everything about the record is perfect though and in general, I much prefer the heartfelt acoustic ballads earlier on the record to some of the more lounge-flavored songs later on. Despite a sound that I find inconsistent I was happy by just how much I enjoyed Natalia as both a songwriter and a performer across this record's tracklist and if you're willing to indulge in some of it's tangents, I think you'll be rewarded. 7/10