Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood Album Review

Waxahatchee's new release Tigers Blood continues to evolve the fun folk-americana feelings of her 2020 breakthrough album Saint Cloud. The album has a great summery feel while maintaining the meaningful lyrics that Waxahatchee has become known for. 

Katie Crutchfield entered the music business in 2007 when she and her twin sister started a pop-punk band, P.S. Eliot. The two girls decided to pursue their solo careers in 2011 but still played together and toured as P.S. Eliot in 2016. After the two sisters parted ways, Katie Crutchfield started to make music under the name Waxahatchee, named after a river in her hometown. 

Her first solo album American Weekend, released in 2012, explores the feelings of being trapped, isolated, and depressed. Her following albums started to evolve to embrace more of her country twang but was still quite bedroom pop. When the artist released Saint Cloud her whole career changed, doubling her audience. Waxahatchee opened up about getting sober while creating this album and changing the way she wrote and thought about her music. Saint Cloud completely shifted her musical style to embrace the folk style fans have come to know and love and won her the Best Country Record at the Libera Awards. Between the release of Saint Cloud and Tigers Blood Crutchfield has also released a debut album with a new musical partner, Jess Williamson.

The artists’ duo project, Plains, released I Walked With You A Ways in 2022 and went on tour following the release. Plains’ debut is what got me into Waxahatchee and was my go-to album of the summer. This album helped develop the sound that is present in Tigers Blood. 

Tigers Blood has 12 tracks with a listening time of 42 minutes. The album is fueled by the acoustic strumming of Crutchfield’s guitar accompanied by the soft licks of the electric guitars. Songs like “Evil Spawn,” “Right Back to It,” “Bored,” and “Crowbar,” are perfect for singing along to and will definitely be played in my car this summer. I can feel myself listening to this in the cold dark days of the winter reminiscing on the summer even though it's only March. Saint Cloud being written in a time in Crutchfield's life when she was getting sober resulted in the album being quite serious and having a strong message of struggles in life and her relationships. With this album, she said she was looking to create an energetic good feeling instead of another big statment. Although the album achieves that goal, the lyrics still pack a meaningful punch. To finish off the review, I'm going to quickly highlight some of my favourite lyrics in the hopes that you’ll feel inclined to listen. 

“Throw a brick through the window, leave your mess at my door

Lord knows sooner or later it'd wash up to shore” - “Tigers Blood” 

“My Spine’s a rotted two-by-four” - “Bored” 

“Shirk every rule of thumb, I got more where that came from” - “ Lone Star Lake” 

“We been checked out, chasing the money, And I been trying to tell 'em it ain't no way to live” - “Burns Out at Midnight”

If you want something uplifting and fun or a little soul-crushing this album can give you both! I can already feel the good vibes and memories that will come with this album in the future. I cannot wait to listen to it when the weather gets a little warmer and maybe contemplate my life a little.