Photo by Molly Matalon

While Katie Crutchfield has been on a long journey over the past decade-plus, her creative arch being that of constant slow-burns has made it worth every step. From the DIY creases of her previous band P.S. Eliot, her solo breakthroughs American Weekend and Cerulean Salt, and the indie rock bursts of Ivy Tripp and Out In the Storm, she has since become one of the most impressive folk heroes of the modern alternative country indie aesthetic, with 2020’s Saint Cloud realizing it as her center. We’re all the more fortunate for her songbook companionship, and on “Right Back to It”, the lead single from her sixth studio album, Tigers Blood, her warm writ returns right where it left off. Joined in company here with Crutchfield inviting in another cornerstone of the scene in Wednesday guitarist (and solo songwriter in his own right,) MJ Lenderman, this calm and swaying rekindling of connection, no matter the eggshells and fault lines set her in her path, is like coming home. “But you just settle in / Like a song with no end,” she sings. “If I can keep up / We’ll get right back to it.” Under her hand, it sounds effortless.

Directed by: Corbett Jones & Nick Simonite

Waxahatchee’s Tigers Blood will be released March 22nd on ANTI- Records.