Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

On her third album for both Fat Possum and Loose Records, Courtney Marie Andrews has pulled in to one package all the songwriting skill, vocal prowess, and musicianship displayed on previous albums, into one career defining statement. A break-up record for sure, though due to Courtney’s extraordinary storytelling gifts, more of a modern day coming-of-age tale of love won, love sustained, and unfortunately, love’s inevitable dissolution.

Like a young Linda Ronstadt at her country-folk finest, Courtney Marie Andrews writes songs that seem lived-in and familiar in the best way. “Guilty” is a time machine straight back to early 1970s Laurel Canyon: beautiful piano, easy drums, and vocals so warm and evocative you feel the heart and the hunger even if you don’t know the words. (There are echoes of that other canyon queen, Joni Mitchell, as well, especially in the hiccupping chorus of the gently bubbling “If I Told.”) But the words are pretty powerful. Written and recorded at the end of a nine-year relationship—meaning it lasted nearly one-third of her life—Old Flowers finds the singer-songwriter poking at the tender bruise of heartbreak. “This album is about loving and caring for the person you know you can’t be with,” Andrews, who now lives in Nashville but is originally from Phoenix, has said. “It’s about not being afraid to be vulnerable after you’ve been hurt.” On the gorgeous “Together or Alone,” she projects a disbelief of reality: “The last time I saw you/ you wouldn’t look me in the eye … in some other lifetime/ would you pick me out again?” For the standout track “Break the Spell,” Andrews’ plaintive, stretched out “please” in the chorus— “please break the spell”—is like a prayer that eventually wears her down. Its music is empathetic: barely-there tambourine nodding along and percussion that sounds like objects being moved around an otherwise empty room. There’s an equally neat trick on “Carnival Dream,” where Andrews chants “I may never let love in again” over melancholy piano before the drums come in like thunder claps to try and shake her out of it. The lively “It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault” feels like the morning after that storm: “I cannot be to blame for the story of this pain” Andrew sings, her voice lifting like a bird hopping from the ground to a tree branch and even daring a playful “whoo-hoo” on the bridge. – Shelly Ridenour

Tracklist:
1-01. Courtney Marie Andrews – Burlap String (03:57)
1-02. Courtney Marie Andrews – Guilty (03:54)
1-03. Courtney Marie Andrews – If I Told (04:58)
1-04. Courtney Marie Andrews – Together or Alone (04:01)
1-05. Courtney Marie Andrews – Carnival Dream (04:20)
1-06. Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers (03:48)
1-07. Courtney Marie Andrews – Break the Spell (04:22)
1-08. Courtney Marie Andrews – It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault (03:18)
1-09. Courtney Marie Andrews – How You Get Hurt (04:24)
1-10. Courtney Marie Andrews – Ships in the Night (04:02)

Download:

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