Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee

It is surprisingly difficult to reread my review of Waxahatchee’s last album, Saint Cloud, my #1 album of 2020. That album came out March 27 that year, just as the world was locking down. This was the first year of Covid, with (only) 400,000 deaths. Saint Cloud was the blanket that kept us warm, the unexpectedly bright star in that darkness. 2024 wasn’t nearly as dark, as Covid is mostly controlled, having left the world scarred and scared. And here as I write this at the end of January 2025, we’re in a different kind of dark times, unsure where the world is headed. “Unsettled,” as a vibe.

We’re so lucky to have Katie Crutchfield and her band to help prop us up and give us the energy we need to carry on. Like Katie to her sister Alison, Tigers Blood is very much a twin to Saint Cloud. Crutchfield brought back Brad Cook to produce the album (he also plays bass on every song aside from one). His ability to bring the coziness of the recording space into these songs is impeccable as always. You could easily play both albums back to back and have no real indication where one album ends and the other begins, aside from one notable exception: the backing vocals of one MJ Lenderman.

You may recall Lenderman, whose recent solo album was featured at #9 this year. His dry drawl is a perfect lower-register match to Crutchfield’s strong twang. Lenderman’s guitar appears across every song on the album, and he provides exquisite harmonies on four of them, often singing an unexpected harmonic tone underneath but not hidden from the forefront. The first single from the album, “Right Back To It” has Lenderman’s voice so prominent that he received a “ft. MJ Lenderman” credit in the song title. Released just over two months before the album came out, it was a strong indication of where Waxahatchee was headed.

Another highlight of Lenderman’s backing vocals is the “title song,” a slow, depressing-in-a-good-way dirge that ends with the entire band lending their voices to the chorus. I challenge you to zone in on Lenderman’s voice when you can pick it up underneath Crutchfield. The choices he makes for the harmony line are entirely unique and surprising. It makes me want to go back and give his band Wednesday’s 2023 album Rat Saw God another proper listen.

The highlight for me on the album is also the most sparse, “365.” I first truly fell for Waxahatchee on her song “Chapel of Pines” from the 2018 EP Great Thunder. It’s a simple song, just an acoustic guitar and Crutchfield’s strong, dripping-with-emotion voice planted firmly in your ear. This is where Waxahatchee shines brightest, when she is at her most intimate. “365” is similar in tone – simple acoustic baritone guitar from Brad Cook, organ from his brother Phil, Lenderman on a second acoustic guitar, and drummer (and Jeff Tweedy’s son) Spencer Tweedy playing a lone cymbal, everything drawn back to let Crutchfield’s voice proceed unhindered. The song is a gut punch, describing a person whose whole being is wrapped up in their broken-beyond-repair partner:

“I catch your poison arrow. I catch your same disease. Bow like a weeping willow, buc-kle-in’ at the knees, beg-gin’ you ‘please.’ If you fly up beyond the cosmos, it’s a long way to fall back down. Ya always go ’bout this the wrong way, and I’m too weak to just let you drown. So when you kill, I kill, When you ache, I ache. We both haunt this ol’ lifeless town When you fail, I fail When you fly, I fly, And it’s a long way to come back down.”

Crutchfield’s own voice doubles up her lead vocals, going up even higher on the verse above. It is such an unbelievably wrenching baring of emotion, you can feel throughout your entire being this person’s anguish at being stuck in this situation.

There is not a bad song on Tigers Blood. You can watch videos for the much more amped up and rocking “Bored,” evoking sounds of Rilo Kiley¹, and the more traditional slow country “Much Ado About Nothing.” Better yet, you should watch Waxahatchee’s latest “NPR Tiny Desk Concert” from December, 2024. This is their third appearance in the series, having appeared back in 2013, young, solo on guitar, and rough around the edges, and again with a special “Tiny Desk (Home) Concert” in April 2020, with her boyfriend Kevin Morby (another Top 31 alum – #3 in 2022²).

Waxahatchee has been on a massive wave since I started following them shortly after the release of their 2018 EP. The audience keeps getting bigger, and Crutchfield’s reach keeps getting wider. This year she’s been nominated for a Grammy, for best Americana album. The category is full of names I don’t recognize, aside from the heavy hitter T. Bone Burnett, who I imagine would be a lock with the Grammy voters. But maybe we’ll be able to see Katie sharing that stage with Beyoncé or Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar on February 2. If not, I’m fairly certain this won’t be her only opportunity. Here’s to looking forward to the next one!

^{1. I’ve learned today that Rilo Kiley, led by Top 31 alum Jenny Lewis (#24 in 2014) is reuniting and touring this summer – I’m going to assume Waxahatchee leading the currently indie rock scene into alt.country heaven is what has made that happen.↩}
^{2. Crutchfield showed up in 2022 as well, as half of the duo Plains with Jess Williamson on their fantastic I Walked With You a Ways at #13.↩}

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Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman

I first heard MJ Lenderman on the lovely Waxahatchee song “Right Back To It,” which came out on January 9, 2024. I’d been anxiously awaiting something new from Waxahatchee, so the new single was a much welcome surprise, despite the new sensation of having male backing vocals crowd in on Katie Crutchfield’s lead. When the new full Waxahatchee album came out in March, we learned that MJ Lenderman was all over that album, singing with Crutchfield on four songs, and playing electric guitar across the entire album. Just who was this guy suddenly thrust into my Waxahatchee-loving world?

Thankfully, later in the year, I learned exactly who MJ Lenderman was. His great record, Manning Fireworks, lands way up here at #9 on the Top 31. And once again, I’m late to the party. Fireworks is the fourth album Lenderman has released since 2019. His last album, Boat Songs, is apparently something special as well and I aim to check it out. On top of that, he is actively in the band Wednesday, with whom he has also released three albums in that same time period. Their 2023 album, Rat Saw God, barely missed the Top 31 last year, remaining in contention for one of the upper 20s spots until just before I started up the Top 31 (they can’t all win, and I often make the wrong choice in retrospect).

Lenderman’s voice is somewhere in the same area of the musical chart next to Eef Barzelay from Clem Snide, slightly scratchy, a touch of strain, and all emotion. There’s also hints of Stephen Malkmus, whose off-key delivery always put me off but I somehow find endearing with Lenderman. And there’s a straightforwardness, an earnestness to the delivery that feels very much like Neil Young. Lenderman’s fuzzy guitar often evokes some Neil as well.

The lead singer of Wednesday, Karly Hartzman, who is also Lenderman’s ex romantic partner, features prominently throughout Fireworks. It’s her backing vocals we hear on all but three of the nine songs. As opposed to Hartzman and Lenderman’s Wednesday albums, Lenderman and his solo-album band have slowed things down mostly into an alt.country lane, complete with pedal steel guitar. “She’s Leaving You,” featured above, is one of the more straightforward rock songs on the album, and Lenderman’s unpolished voice really drives it home. “Joker Lips” is slower, squarely country, as is “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In” – the two other songs he’s produced videos for from the album.

The album ends with a ten-minute epic of a song called “Bark at the Moon.” The song starts out as nearly every other Lenderman song does, with a bit of lyrical humor. “I‘ve lost my sense of humor. I’ve lost my driving range. I could really use your two cents, babe. I could really use the change.” He then carries further into a depressing tale, where it’s clear he’s experiencing a breakup and his soon-to-be-ex is moving away from him. “Don’t move to New York City, babe. It’s gonna change the way you dress.” The lyrics then wrap up the story bringing us home to the reasoning for the song title, which also happens to be an early 80s Ozzy Osbourne track and album title. “I’ve never seen the the Mona Lisa. I’ve never really left my room. I’ve been up too late with Guitar Hero playing ‘Bark at the Moon.’ Awooooo.” The song then devolves into six minutes of glorious guitar drone that is quite pleasant in its loudness.

I’m excited to get to see Lenderman in February, at the Neptune here in Seattle. I’ve always had a soft spot for alt.country,¹ and with MJ Lenderman showing up in two of my favorite albums from 2024, I‘m going to be watching him closely for the foreseeable future.

^{1. I just looked up the wikipedia page for “alternative country,” to see if anyone still referred to it as “alt.country” as I still do, and saw that another name for it is “y’allternative.” I won’t start using that, preferring to stick to my late 90s verbiage, but I do love that turn of phrase.↩}

#2 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Waxahatchee

#9 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — MJ Lenderman