When Carly Pearce burst onto the scene in 2017, she was acclaimed by Scott Borchetta as the ‘next Taylor Swift.’ That she is not. Carly Pearce is beyond comparison, as an astounding artist in her own right, with a wholly unique sound and voice, but one whose respect for the country music genre – both its legacy and history – is blindingly clear in the way she handles and creates her art. Carly Pearce’s self-titled album drops tomorrow and appears as a love letter to the very genre she espouses. We review the album here and reveal our stand-out tracks.
With a debut album like Every Little Thing already under her belt, Pearce was faced with a huge task to recreate and also progress the sound and success of this project in her sophomore album. She more than accomplished it. This album is a masterstroke – a reminder that country music is alive, well and thriving, that album craft itself is not dead and of course, that women should be celebrated and have a place on country radio.
Opening with the first single from her new album, ‘Closer To You,’ Pearce draws a hard delineation between the state she was in for Every Little Thing and now – celebrating her love for now-husband, Michael Ray. The song is one that translates masterfully live (as we saw at last year’s C2C Festival), celebrating love in an easy-breezy fashion, but does not permeate the depths of emotion that the later tracks do. Instead, the song dances out the toxins of Every Little Thing and positions the record’s compelling prose – an act of reconciliation with her previous heartbreak and a love letter to her husband. Such a mindset is imbued into the second teasing, playful and flirty track ‘Call Me,’ co-written with the male contingent of Little Big Town – ‘for a good time call me / Baby you won’t be sorry / Lay your hands and your kisses on me’. These two songs as a pair are definitely the grooviest, most ‘fun’ songs on the album – setting the parameters for the beginning of her relationship, and the album.
‘I Hope You’re Happy Now’ follows this pair, reconciling Pearce with her previous heartbreak. This duet with Lee Brice acts as a homage to the country duets of the past – Dolly and Kenny, Tim and Faith – and the result is flawless and devastating in equal measure. Both Pearce and Brice pour their souls into the track, in this immensely relatable song about the two sides of heartbreak. It was a masterstroke to put Pearce in the driving seat for this one, singing about her sorrow for breaking her former lover’s heart (breaking the usual stereotype of it being the man). ‘I hope you found what you were looking for / I hope your heart ain’t hurting anymore.’ The lyricism of the track, accompanied by lapsteel and pedal steel, has Busbee’s master touch all over it. To those who say country music doesn’t exist anymore, point them to this track.
Transitioning into the driving guitar on ‘Dashboard Jesus,’ Pearce again hammers home her love for a genre that has always been founded on real life, work, family and religion. Reminiscent of the ethos of Faith Hill’s ‘Wild One,’ the song is all about leaving home and needing only a ‘Dashboard Jesus’ for accompaniment – a song that feels immensely personal and a real insight into the mind of the artist. ‘Every body says she’s dreaming, crazy for believing / But all you really need is fifty dimes and a Dashboard Jesus.’
Vocally, Pearce is her strongest on next track ‘Halfway Home,’ where her range is simply phenomenal, and shows just how far she has come even since her debut. It is another song about the other side of love, having to come clean on a relationship that just isn’t right. The emotion imbued in the track is overpowering and it will surely create a devastating live ‘moment.’
These tracks, as a trio, appear as a reminiscence on her past love, before notching up the pace of the record for ‘Heart’s Going Out of Its Mind’ and ‘Finish Your Sentences’ (duet with Michael Ray. The former is a groovy, modern-country tune, ‘boy, whatever you’re selling I’m buying it, / I’m losing it a little but I’m liking it… if I look a little crazy that’s fine, my heart’s going out of its mind.’ The track is love-fuelled and fun, with more depth, vocal creativity and clever songwriting than is obvious at first listen, whilst ‘Finish Your Sentences’ with Michael Ray is a more mature, quieter ballad. The track really brings out the best in Ray too; his vocal’s depth in the lower registers is stunning, particularly when coupled with the range of Pearce’s voice that soars here. Like a marriage, the track brings together the best of both Pearce and Ray’s music and the result is flawless.
‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’ is arguably the stand-out moment on the album – though you’d be hard-pressed to find just one. In terms of Pearce’s legacy, personally this track supersedes ‘Every Little Thing’ in its emotional complexity and the depths Pearce clearly tapped into on recording. The track deals with living in the moment, embracing your current state – though the track can read as two ways, for those who need a reminder that life won’t always be this tough, and a reminder to embrace the good times when they happen. The song describes wanting to get out of her hometown, but then wanting to return – the magic is in Pearce’s pure tone of her vocal, and the gorgeous songwriting with Hemby and Ellis ‘I had big wings, but didn’t have a sky,’ with Pearce’s voice teetering on the brink of breaking under the weight of the emotion she handles in the track.
Sultrier track, ‘Lighting in a Bottle’ leads with a groovier, more stripped-back track, singing again about the beginning of a relationship, and Pearce’s vocal trips easily over the track. The genius here is in the constantly changing, yet consistently lazily groovy tempo, and the cadence of changes to the layers of instrumentation, rising in waves, before Pearce flawlessly sings acapella at the culmination of the track. Similarly, ‘Love Has No Heart’ pauses in the choruses, allowing Pearce’s vocals to swell, whilst the verses, at points, move with a loose, staccato tempo.
Pearce revives so many themes that are the legacy of country music in ‘Woman Down’ that feels astute and ‘of the moment,’ accompanied by an easy lapsteel. ‘Woman down, down on her luck, there goes the man, there goes the plan, there goes the truck‘ inverting them in an image of empowered, independent women. The track feels anthemic – ‘You can’t keep a woman down… Who you going to bet on when the sky is falling?’ The theme feels like new territory for Pearce, yet within the context of the record, is the missing piece in the compelling prose of this record that is continued in the positioning of ‘You Kissed Me First.’ The track feels sassy and fun, ‘If I wake up in your T-shirt, just remember you kissed me first,’ a reminder to a lover of who is in control (supposedly) of the relationship.
Rounding out the album, ‘Greener Grass’ is imbued with nostalgia, looking back to the positive sides of relationships. ‘It cuts me to the bone, knowing I can’t go back to greener grass.’ Busbee’s production feels nostalgic, infused with 90s-country production and hints of a more mystical sound. The track is a reminder of Pearce’s headspace whilst writing ‘Every Little Thing,’ yet is rife with nostalgia, signposting this reconciliation with her previous heartbreak and her current happiness.
Busbee’s imprint is everywhere in the album – in the care to which he handles ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’ to the ratcheted up tempo and popped production on ‘Heart’s Going Out of Its Mind’ – and there is no more fitting legacy to his craftsmanship than this record. Pearce has created a record that will both satisfy and please her previous fans, and also create a new legion of fans. This album is so utterly compelling, both in the way that Pearce has paid homage to the legacy of country music in the themes, content and framework of songwriting and also in the phrasing of the record, as an insight into Pearce’s journey since Every Little Thing. I have not listened to an album in a while where every track is so enthralling in its own right, but when placed within the context of the record creates a different kind of prose entirely. The result is flawlessly captivating and deserving of every commendation that is bound to come its way.
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Editor’s Picks
It Won’t Always Be Like This
I Hope You’re Happy Now
Halfway Home
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