This Friday, Jillian Jacqueline will release her much-anticipated new album ‘Honestly,’ the follow-up to 2018’s Side B. It is a composed and mature record with extraordinary depth, here we delve into the record.
Jillian Jacqueline has long been one of the most quietly extraordinary artists in country music, an indie artist in the genre following and carving out her own path and earning a legion of hard-core fans (many in the UK) along the way. Since the release of 2018’s Side B, she has signed a new deal with Virgin Music for the release of Honestly, welcomed her first child and recorded this first full-length album. After many years in the industry, Honestly feels like the record Jillian was always meant to release, one filled with tenderness, hope and optimism, showcasing herself as an artist and human being.
Honesty has always been the mainstay for Jacqueline’s artistry, making her music always something utterly intimate and individual. There’s a melancholia mixed with hope mixed with joy and despondency that make her music so compelling – taking the pain alongside the joy in equal measure. Honestly is her first full-length album and reveals a suite of songs that are rich and powerful, yet with the same intimacy that makes Jacqueline such a compelling and likeable artist. That intimate quality was not created by accident. Honestly was created with ‘kindred-spirit musical partners Tofer and Bryan Brown’ – her brother-in-law and husband, the record crafted in her home studio during pandemic seclusion, requiring a more intense level of care and craftsmanship in its creation. Creating the record this way has hammered home a quieter, more reflective and organic sound throughout Honestly, imbuing the project with a more vintage feel, akin to Carole King or Patsy Cline.
Honestly opens with the emotionally potent duet with Charlie Worsham, ‘The Ocean,’ in which she sings of the endless potential of true love. ‘Some loves are easy, coming and going / Some loves are endless, feel just like home and / Some loves are dead-ends, some fall into the great wide-open / Some loves are rivers, some are the ocean.’ Jacqueline doesn’t shy away from the beauty of a strong and deep love, tying the record together in returning to theme on the final track, ‘Honeymoon.’ ‘This is another beautiful, nostalgic ballad, stripped-back Jacqueline’s vocal is allowed to shine. ‘I know nothing lasts forever, so I’ll hold on to / The light of your skin when it all felt so new / The sky turning pink and a blue / I’ll always remember you, in the glow of the honeymoon.’ On ‘Sure,’ Jacqueline reunites with star songwriter Lori McKenna, for a gorgeous sweeping ballad about the comforting stability of true love. ‘I’m not sure the sun will rise you / And I’m not sure the ocean pulls the moon / Got a lifelong of history of this whole world being a mystery / And I’m sure I’ve never been sure of anything / But I’m sure about you.’ It’s a beautiful celebration of the surety of a real and committed relationship.
Still, there is a lot of pain and heartache on Honestly. ‘When It Rains’ is a waltzing, nostalgic ballad, looking back on a torturous relationship. ‘I only miss you when it rains / When the sky is grey and white… Cos you and me were always bound to be one long stretch of clouds / Waiting for the rainbow that never came, I only miss you when it rains.’ ‘Compliment’ also embodies the pain of lost or unrequited love, it’s a torturous, beautiful and yearning track.‘Say anything, I should say thank you, I should be thankful we’re talking at all / I should be counting every word that falls from your tongue.’ The track has a poignant intimacy, both in the directness of the lyrics, but in the production around her tender vocal. So, on ‘Better with a Broken Heart,’ Jacqueline elicits the vocals of TJ Osborne on this emotional rumination on basking in sad emotions, mending her broken heart in solitude. ‘No my misery don’t need company, just / Neon burned out with a few whiskeys down / And a sad song in a smoky bar / A long drive alone without anywhere to go / And the rain on the roof of this car / Some things just go better with a broken heart.’ The duos have an incredible power to infuse their vocals with raw emotion, as they trade back and forth with ease.
Jacqueline also celebrates her free-spirited nature on the record. ‘Bandwagon’ is a delightful, whimsical track about following the crowd and the fleeting nature of the public interest. ‘Go ahead and get on, this one is almost gone / Hey, don’t get left behind, those fifteen minutes fly / And when that last sun sets, we’ll follow who’s up next / These wheels are kickin’ up dust, everyone wants to get up / On the bandwagon.’ ‘Hummingbird’ is also immensely charming. ‘I hate to be alone / But I’d rather be alone / When I’m not alone / I’ve spent so many years looking in the mirror, just trying to see myself’ ‘I’m more like a hummingbird with a restless heartbeat / Every time I get where I’m going, the first thing I want to do is leave.’
As we’ve come to expect from Jacqueline, there is a lot of wistfulness on the record, none more so than on ‘Iconic.’ This track opens with a whispering string section. ‘What if we both got what we wanted / What if we bet our whole lives on it / What if we never broke our promise / We could be iconic.’ Jacqueline infuses a wistful energy into this track that is carried through on ‘Magic.’ Here she reminisces again on a lost love, as Jacqueline wonders what form it took. ‘Was it magic or just nostalgic? / A queen of hearts up the sleeve of a jacket / Were we drunk or just distracted? / Feels like smoke and mirrors now / It disappeared but don’t know how / Were we just an empty hat without the rabbit?’Â
Jacqueline has created a beautifully intimate and wistful record that showcases the full depth of her lyricism and songwriting vision. It’s a gorgeous, beautifully composed and well-balanced record that allows her vocal to shine to the fore. More than anything Honestly shows Jacqueline’s knowledge of her own artistry, its place in the zeitgeist, imbibing nostalgic and current elements while remaining wholly true to herself – the mark of a true artist.
