Album Review: Courtney Marie Andrews, Valentine

A previous alumnus of both the River Jones Music and uber-cool Fat Possum labels, with Valentine, the Grammy-nominated Courtney Marie Andrews makes her bow on the Thirty Tigers imprint. In football parlance, it’s quite the signing.

Andrews is definitely on target with opener ‘Pendulum Swings’, with her soaring vocals offsetting the mellow arrangement. Valentine is the perfect title for this collection, being in Andrews’ own description, “a record in pursuit of love”. Last time out, Loose Future made Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Albums of 2022, while the LP before that, Old Flowers, was nominated for Best Americana Album at the Grammys.

Here, ‘Cons & Clowns’ floats splendidly between Americana and folk, while also detouring into country and even indie-pop. With Jerry Bernhardt in the producer’s chair, the record was almost entirely recorded to tape, with the seismic totems of Lee Hazelwood, Big Stars’ Third and Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk as guiding stars.

You can certainly sense the dust of the latter on ‘Magic Touch’, while neither ‘Little Picture Of A Butterfly’ nor ‘Outsider’ would feel out of place on Nancy & Lee. Elsewhere, ‘Everybody Wants To Feel Like You Do’ is a Petty-style slice of heartland rock, while the stripped back ‘Best Friend’ is proof that, if push came to shove, all Andrews needs is herself and her guitar. Powerful stuff.

8/10