The incredible rising star in the Americana scene, Taylor Rae, released her brand new album today! I have to admit, while I love the style of music, I’m not really familiar with Taylor or her music. However, I’ve been sent it over and have spent the last couple of days blasting it and really enjoying it. So, of course, I wanted to let y’all know all the best bits!
Opening on the title track; a simple acoustic guitar sound, Taylor’s vocals still ring out perfectly and beautifully over the top. It’s chilled-out and all fits excellently together, building in more sounds and instruments as it goes on. It’s got that relaxing Roots/Americana sound akin to the likes of Julian Taylor or Savannah Conley. And her vocals are truly beautiful. By the second chorus it almost has an epic feel to it, building in more guitars and even some distortion. It’s masterfully written and producted, and the dynamics throughout are a lot of fun. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger! It’s a really interesting sound and one hell of a choice to open the album with!
‘Maybe I’m the Villain’ feels a little more upbeat and almost a touch rockier, while still having that same chilled-out vibe to it. I love the effect on Taylor’s vocals through the verses, adding a fun extra layer to it all and sounding awesome. Her vocals have a bit more of that Austin twang to them on this track too, adding more of the country sound to it. It’s a bit simpler, more radio-friendly sound and structure, too. It’s a damn catchy chorus as well! It’s bouncy, catchy and alot of fun, and a very easy, big highlight of the album!
There’s a bit of a smokey, dive-jazz bar feel to ‘Cologne’, fitting the song’s title and theme pretty perfectly. The guitaring through it is incredible, and honestly some of the little runs give big Frusciantie vibes! Heck, the guitar solo tucked away in the middle is phenomenal, and fits the tone of the song perfectly. And Taylor’s vocals and lyrics are typically awesome, too. I particularly love the call-and-response style of the final chorus. It’s another great, relaxed, almost easy-listening song!
‘Telluride’ returns to the acoustic-folk style of the opening track, but still has a bit of bounce and swagger to it akin to the other two. It builds to another infectiously catchy chorus, but then again all the vocal melodies are pretty great to sing along to! And of course the instrumentation is amazing; whoever recorded the parts for these are all criminally underrated. Heck, it feels like the song all builds towards that AMAZING guitar solo and final chorus, it again having an almost epic feel to it and honestly giving me goosebumps. I haven’t heard a solo that good on an acoustic in a while, and it definitely didn’t make me at all jealous of their playing ability… Sierra Hull has an awesome feature in the track, adding to an already incredible sound and the pair blending so well together. It’s another huge highlight of the album, and a song that easily makes it onto our playlist!
Songs like ‘Undertone’, Celebrating Alone’ ‘Not Mine’ are more chilled-out, stripped-back easy listening acoustic songs. Heck, the two latter ones almost had a touch of Jack Johnson to them, which I really love! The subtle piano behind the drums, alongside some beautiful vocals and harmonies, again give it a jazz bar or club feel, and all sounds so good. All three songs are amazing, but I did find myself gravitating towards the latter more on subsequent listens, another massive album high!
‘Hi’ has a slight bit more energy to it; another catchy acoustic track but with a bit more of a bounce. It’s another truly beautiful chorus packed with awesome harmonies and great lyric-writing. The same could be said about the fantastic ‘Trapped’, feeling like a combination of the past few songs. She’s already such an underrated songwriter, and this whole album is a testament to that.
The closing track, ‘The Airport Song’, feels like it ties elements of each song that precedes it perfectly. It’s chilled-out and packed full of incredible instrumentation and vocals and lyrics. The choruses are awesome, as are the solos, and Taylor’s vocals are so incredible and beautiful throughout, fitting the track excellently. It’s also produced perfectly, having an epic feel to it due to the arrangement and five-minute length. That bluesy outro solo is phenomenal. It’s another absolutely massive highlight of the album, and the perfect way to end things on a huge high!
Overall: I loved this! As I said in the intro, I had no idea what to expect headed into this, but I enjoyed it far more than I expected I would. Every song was awesome and thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve really started to get into this end of music recently, and Taylor does it better than few others. She has a huge new fan in me, and I’ll definitely be going back and checking out her debut album as soon as I’ve finished typing this up! I cannot recommend this enough to anyone into the softer side of Americana, country, rock or pop music.
The Score: 8.5/10