Music
Review: Waxahatchee’s Grueling, Thrilling LP Is Indie Rock Band’s Sharpest Yet
Our take on 'Out in the Storm'
“I spend all my time learning how to defeat you at your own game. It’s embarrassing.” So opens the fourth LP from singer-guitarist Katie Crutchfield’s great indie-rock band Waxahatchee: two clear sentences mapping out an album’s worth of tangled regret, helplessness, endurance and shame – driven home with burning guitars and ache and hunger in her voice. It starts off the sharpest set of songs Crutchfield has come up with, from the big-drinking, scene-causing country of “8 Ball” to the Nineties guitar churn of “Silver” to the ruggedly pretty ballad “Sparks Fly.” Each song is as grueling as it is thrilling.