Katie Crutchfield has received glowing reviews for her previous album, 2013’s Cerulean Salt, and now the praise for Ivy Tripp is starting to roll in. Most of the new Waxahatchee album mines angsty ‘90s alt-rock; the point where grunge met folk, and where music melded a ragged aggression with detached resignation. Ivy Tripp uncovers a more upfront Crutchfield, contained within a cleaner production in comparison to her earlier bedroom recordings. Outside of the bulk of the album’s grungy alt-rock persona, she tries a few other styles on for size, distilling the quiet rage of EMA on the organ-buzzing opener Breathless and singing in the style of Sally Seltmann on the fragile, romantic Stale By Noon.
Clouded in weary self-reflection, Ivy Tripp spins out some energetic tunes that are appealing for their duration but don’t resonate long after, with the exception of the bittersweet album highlight Air. Song titles such as Half Moon and < (with a chorus of “You are less than me and I am nothing”) reflect the album’s subject matter: that halfway point where you’re in your adult years but still uncertainly questioning everything in your life that earlier generations had supposedly ‘worked out’ by now. In exploring this transitional period, Crutchfield has delivered what sounds like a transitional record, developing on from her previous work but working toward something that remains out of reach.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
