W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

04. Coast – Snocaps (Anti Records)

With the exception of 2022’s collaboration with Jess Williamson as Plains, everything Katie Crutchfield has touched since 2015’s Ivy Trip has been an end of the year finalist for myself, she’s been on that kind of roll these past 10 years.  This year is no exception with the surprise release Coast from Snocaps, her collaboration with twin sister Allison, Jake Lenderman and Brad Cook.  After pursuing a career as an A&R rep at Anti Records, Allison hadn’t participated in any actual musical endeavors in quite some time and this turned out to be the perfect vehicle for her and her sister to re-visit their indie rock roots, an idiom which Katie sort of abandoned after 2017’s Out In The Storm for a more Americana/Country-ish style.  As has always been the case when the Crutchfield sisters get together, the vocals are angelic.  The two sisters when they sing together create a thing of beauty that at times can be otherworldly.  And then there is the songwriting.  This album is chock full of first rate songs, each and everyone of them loaded with hooks that most musicians would kill for.  Speaking of hooks, was there a better one written in 2025 than the chorus of “Heathcliff”, with the sisters singing together the lines, “When you go down, you take me down with you”?  All in all, Coast is a stellar album which only bears one complaint in that by all accounts its going to be a one off project with no real plans from any of the participants to continue with Snocaps into the future.