When Caitlyn Smith released ‘High’ in April last year she promised us that the second part, the ‘Low’ half, would arrive in late 2022 or early 2023. She’s a woman of her word. Here is our review of ‘High’ in case you missed it last year – click here to read.
Smith has famously written tracks like ‘Wasting All These Tears’ for Cassadee Pope, ‘You Can’t Make Old Friends’ for Dolly & Kenny Rogers and ‘Tacoma’ for Garth Brooks, as well as having songs cut by artists such as Rascal Flatts, John Legend, Meghan Trainor and Miley Cyrus. Her debut album, ‘Starfire’ (2018) was a thing of passion and power, with tracks like ‘This Town is Killing Me’ bringing her to the attention of the Country music crowd. Follow up album, ‘Supernova’ (2020) was a little more Pop-leaning and heavier on the production flourishes although ‘I Can’t’, which ended up as a duet with Old Dominion, was a cracker of a song and ‘Put Me Back Together’ did great things in a slightly different arena too.
The ‘High’ half of this album was dominated by powerful, impactful songs like ‘Maybe in Another Life’ and ‘Good As Us’. The quote that resonates with me the most, a year on, that best describes the album is this: ‘There are no wasted lines on ‘High’ and no rhymes thrown in just to be able to move a song forward. Everything here has been birthed with care and love and a kind of passion for the song that is rare to find.’ You’ll find exactly the same, if not more, spread richly across the songs on ‘Low’.
The first thing to note is that Caitlyn Smith has decided to mix up the songs that constitute the two halves of the release. Rather than sequentially lead with the already released ‘High’ songs, she’s jumbled them up and integrated the ‘Low’ songs within the track listing. This is a stroke of genius as it breathes life into a set of songs we’ve been listening to for a year, interspersed, as they are, amongst a bunch of brand new ones. It gives the album a wholistic, complete feel with all the songs now back in play rather than this being two separate releases frankensteined together.
The elephant in the room, for me, approaching this updated release is that I worried that there wouldn’t be a song as good as ‘Maybe in Another Life’ amongst the new batch and there isn’t, there are TWO that are as good, if not better! Alongside the aforementioned ‘…Another Life’ in a mid-album triple whammy are ‘Alaska’ and ‘I Think Of You’. Both songs pack the sort of emotional punch that ‘…Another Life’ does and go some way towards explaining why this half of the release is the ‘Low’ half.
‘Alaska’ has one of the most impactful opening lines I’ve ever heard in a song. ‘I’m terrified we’ll end up, like my parents, together, but alone.’ WOW! The insight and fear that exists in that one line is one of the reasons I love Country music. In a few short words Smith has summed up the isolation and dislocation that plagues many long term relationships and marriages. ‘Alaska’ is a heartbreaking tale of a couple at odds with each other as Smith ruminates, ‘When you look at me, boy, you might as well be in Alaska’. Middle-aged angst, parental isolation, it’s a huge ballad that builds to a big finish and it will leave you questioning your own relationships too.
‘I Think of You’, meanwhile, is another relatable song about loss and heartbreak. It builds skilfully towards a tender yet anthemic chorus with the strings bringing an almost classical feel. Smith paints another very cinematic picture of a relationship that has broken down in large, yet restrained brush strokes. It hits you right where it’s meant to and leaves you, alongside ‘Alaska’ and ‘Maybe in Another Life’ a little breathless and possibly in desperate need of a drink!
The other ‘Low’ songs are similarly impactful. ‘Lately’ is a piano ballad about filling your life and time with distractions in an effort to move on from a loss: be it through grief or a break-up. It builds carefully in classic Caitlyn Smith mode and there’s a cheeky little intellectual flex from her too, with the song being the only Country music song I’ve ever heard reference Dostoyevsky! ‘Mississippi’, meanwhile, is a tender, acoustic tribute to the state that could also be about a person in the same way that Blake Shelton’s ‘Austin’ was. ‘I’ll always come back to you,’ Smith sings. ‘you’re my hallelujah, my come back home.’ The male vocal that sings along side Smith on the chorus adds a nice feel to the cadence of the melody here too.
Two further songs round off the ‘Low’ half of this powerful album. ‘Writing Songs & Raising Babies’ is an honest and open look at the life of a working mother. It begins with a kind of Jazz meets children’s lullaby vibe before settling into being a Bluesy song with a hint of R&B in the verses. There’s a nice Clapton-esque guitar solo here that brings a kind of late-night-written-after-the-children-have-gone-to-bed-glass-of-wine feel as Smith sings, ‘Some days it’s an all out shitshow, beautiful chaos but I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
‘The Great Pretender’ rounds off the entire project and is perhaps the most intriguing song on ‘High and Low’ in terms of a look behind the curtain at Caitlyn Smith’s life and personality. It begins with a sigh (don’t forget this is part of the ‘Low’ half of the project) before an acoustic guitar comes in and Smith starts singing about anxiety and imposter syndrome. A simple guitar melody repeats underneath lyrics about dress sizes, belonging, dislocation and ‘living in a house of cards about to fall.’ ‘Nobody knows I’m crying in a bathroom stall,’ Smith sings at one point in this raw, honest and relatable song that closes down the ‘High and Low’ album with a punch right to the guts. Put aside your assumptions and let Caitlyn Smith show you her anxieties and fears and you might find that there’s a similarity between you and her that is echoed across many of the songs on this album.
‘High and Low’ is a terrific project. The way the updated version’s songs have been interspersed with the older songs does breathe life into them in a pleasing way and even though most of the new songs are on the ‘Low’ side, there’s a power in their emotions and a relatability in their lyrics that will resonate with you in an uplifting way. There are very few artists that can speak directly to the nature of the human condition but Caitlyn Smith is one of them: a rare breed to be celebrated and cherished. With a sentence here and a phrase there she can deliver the kind of emotional gut-punch that leaves you stunned one moment and smiling, sometimes through the tears, the next. What a writer. What an artist.
Tracklist: 1. Intro 2. High 3. Dreamin’s Free 4. Lately 5. Mississippi 6. Good As Us 7. Alaska 8. Maybe in Another Life 9. I Think of You 10. Nothing Against You 11. Downtown Baby 12. Writing Songs & Raising Babies 13. I Don’t Like the World Without You 14. The Great Pretender Record Label: Monument Records Release Date: April 14th Buy ‘High & Low’ now
