Waxahatchee - Cerulean Salt (CD)

CD edition. On her second full-length record as Waxahatchee, former P.S. Eliot singer Katie Crutchfield's compelling hyper-personal poetry is continuously crushing. Cerulean Salt follows American Weekend - a collection of minimal acoustic-guitar pop written and recorded in a week at her family's Birmingham home. On this record, Crutchfield's songs continue to be marked by her sharp, hooky songwriting; her striking voice and lyrics that simultaneously seem hyper-personal yet relentlessly relatable, teetering between endearingly nostalgic and depressingly dark. But whereas before the thematic focus of her songcraft was on break ups and passive-aggressive crushing, this record reflects on her family and Alabama upbringing. Whereas American Weekend was mostly just Crutchfield and her guitar, Cerulean Salt is occasionally amped up, with a full band and higher-fi production.