Plains

• I Walked With You a Ways [Anti-, 2022] A

Consumer Guide Reviews:

I Walked With You a Ways [Anti-, 2022]
Come-from-Alabama Waxahatchee great Katie Crutchfield bonds with Lone Star L.A. folkie Jess Williamson on 10 irresistibly quiet and fetching songs, most of the loveliest although not the listen-up opener by Crutchfield, with nary a cowrite although they join voices on every one. Revisiting Out in the Storm and Saint Cloud, I was startled by how loud Waxahatchee sounded, the drums especially but in truth the whole sonic gestalt even though Crutchfield's vocals are never assaultive. Here she's generally a quantum or two quieter and the drums are quieter still. Yet pealing out of the stillness the melodies are so strong that for most of the half-hour album I've found myself something like enchanted, an impressive effect given that almost every lyric taxonomizes a love too partial, and not always because the man isn't on the case. Usually, though. A