HC McEntire has built a career that complicated music in her youth. As a child in her Mountains, Blue Ridge, North Carolina, McIntyre began life on her family farm. Her days were soundtracked by her local country radio station. On her Sundays she attended church and her heavenly hymn lifted her out of her weekday twang. These influences influenced McEntire’s own devout folk her songs. Its gospel inflections and her pastoral imagery reflect a deep psychogeographic connection to the land in which she grew up.
A sense of place remains fundamental to McIntyre’s songwriting. Everyacre, an album that finds relief and resolution in the circadian rhythms of nature. where in 2018 Lionheart and the 2020s Eno Axis McEntire envisioned the land as a place of remembrance, from which McEntire sought to reconcile his queerness with his religious upbringing. Everyacre Reframe the Southern environment as a potential scene of rejuvenation and regeneration. It is a place where you can slowly begin your journey towards recovery. “It’s not the easy kind of healing/When you’re on your knees scratching in the garden,” she sings with a sticky drone on “Rows of Clover.”
Slowness and an appreciation for the passage of time are the guiding aesthetic principles of this album. The world of McIntyre comes steadily and languidly into focus. The croaking of frogs at night fills the hazy frame, and McIntyre outlines a landscape of lazy rivers, piled logs, and ripening onions. She grounds herself in these details, trying to fit her restless, drifting mind to the infallible and observable environmental facts. The song’s quiet heartbeat lends it a soothing quality that evokes an idyllic warm psychedelic tone. Neil Youngof Mid-Autumn Moon resounding romance with Tammy Wynetteof we can surely love each other.
It is a peaceful contrast to the central concerns of McEntire’s lyrics, which concern self-esteem, sublimation, grief, and the singer’s ongoing struggle with depression. Take it by the hand and befriend them. Her voice dances a languid waltz on its own. McIntyre thumps at a leisurely pace like a bird, and her guitar provides even more languid counterpoint. Slowness acts as an ointment and remedy. Everyacre No matter how long the scab takes to suture the wound, it will move at the pace of healing.
A creative writing graduate, McEntire has proven himself to be a skilful and diligent lyricist on his previous albums. Everyacre Make more use of the space where language doesn’t work and only music can fill the void. “Time isn’t always kind,” she repeats on “Turpentine,” taking more pleasure in how the phrase sounds in her song than how she reads it as poetry.upon Everyacre, McIntyre’s patient observation of the land provides her with a new foothold full of possibilities and promises. Where McEntire finds her renewed fortitude is her commitment to stagnation.
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