Review Roundup: Clementine Was Right, Olivia Reid, Jolie Holland & Max Knouse
This week, Clementine Was Right tell us we're going home, Jolie Holland and Max Knouse send us on a wolf dispatch, and Olivia Reid searches for space to roam.
There are so many great albums, and never enough time! In this feature, editor Rachel Cholst celebrates some of the best queer country EPs and albums you may have missed!
Clementine Was Right – Tell Yourself You're Going Home
Clementine Was Right take a poetic approach to their indie rock. Tell Yourself You're Going Home is a dazzling tour de force of painterly stories of souls who are cast aside – and out. (Gion Davis has written for us in the past.) But there's no hangdog mournfulness here: instead, David and Mike Young rage against a world where any human is considered expendable. The spoken word "Goddamn Universe" is one of the best songs I've heard this year.
Jolie Holland and Max Knouse – Wolf Dispatch
Jolie Holland and Max Knouse pay tribute to freak folk founder Michael Hurley with Wolf Dispatch. It's a fitting project for Holland, whose powerful music exudes an earthy spirituality. Holland and Knouse's winding guitars and comfortably discordant harmonies give Hurley's off-kilter lyrics a sense of rightness. Here, the songs provide a sense of belonging, rather than a window into an eccentric lone wolf.
Olivia Reid – Space to Roam
I gotta say – it's quite jarring to scroll through my Bluesky feed while enjoying Olivia Reid's Space to Roam. This is a collection of songs that remind us to ground ourselves – literally. All things pass, Reid reflects, and the best way to realize this is to let go. These hypnotic meditations peacefully imbue listeners with a sense of well-being. The future happens anyway, to quote Canadian band NQ Arbuckle, so why fight it? Reid doesn't offer any magic solution – other than to practice a radical acceptance.
