Katie Crutchfield started playing music in high school with her twin sister Alison. Inspired by DIY punk and Rilo Kiley, they released two albums as P.S. Eliot.
Crutchfield took the name Waxahatchee from an Alabama creek near where she was raised. Her first album as Waxahatchee is lo-fi and entirely solo. But her career is eclectic, from the rudimentary solo recordings of American Weekend, through the raw rock of Out in the Storm, to the Americana of Saint Cloud.
Fun fact – Waxahatchee’s first six albums were released in alphabetical order. I wonder if she’ll be able to keep up the trend?
Waxahatchee Album Reviews
American Weekend
2012, 8/10
Following a breakup, Crutchfield decamped to her parents’ house in Birmingham, Alabama. She recorded a batch of songs while snowbound. American Weekend is lo-fi, unadorned, and emotional. Crutchfield accompanies herself on guitar and piano, and sings sad lines like “You’re a ghost and I can’t breathe.” She described Waxahatchee to Pitchfork as an “outlet for writing about my life”.
Even though it’s rudimentary and stripped back, Crutchfield evokes a wide range of moods. She switches to piano for the closing ‘Noccalula’, and it’s particularly affecting. On ‘Luminary Blake’, she’s intense, backed by a simple drumbeat. Her vocals are often fragile, particularly on the opening ‘Catfish’, where she strains to hit notes beyond her natural range.
Despite the rudimentary presentation, American Weekend works.
Cerulean Salt
2013, 7.5/10
Waxahatchee expands to a band on their second record. But it still feels like a Crutchfield bedroom recording, raw and with her electric guitar high in the mix.
Crutchfield recorded Cerulean Salt with members of Swearin’, her twin sister’s band. She was dating Keith Spencer, the drummer for Swearin’. The lyrics often focus on adjusting to adulthood:
A lot of it is about realizing that your childhood is over, that your innocence is gone. When you’re a kid, you’re always happy, and everything’s good. And then you realize, ‘That’s never gonna be how I am again.’
Katie Crutchfield, Pitchfork
The concise songs often end abruptly after a couple of minutes, barreling to the next track. ‘Peace and Quiet’ expertly balances punky rock with introversion. Crutchfield’s back in acoustic, emotional mode for the closing ‘You’re Damaged’.
Cerulean Salt is an expertly crafted sequel to American Weekend. It expands to a full band without losing that album’s fragile spirit.
Ivy Tripp
2015, 7/10
Crutchfield and Keith Spencer isolated themselves for nearly a year in a house in Long Island, making Ivy Tripp. Crutchfield later explained, “I just got to hide out and make a record. At my own pace. That was important to me.” Crutchfield and Spencer worked with Swearin’ guitarist Kyle Gilbride – the trio handled all the instruments, production, and engineering.
Reflecting the isolated setting, it’s Waxahatchee’s most atmospheric album. But the songs are less memorable than usual – the haunting opening to ‘Breathless’ is the album’s most ear-catching moment. It’s more sophisticated at times – ‘La Loose’ presents Waxahatchee’s downtrodden, idiosyncratic take on pop. The closing ‘Bonfire’ stretches to five minutes, employing post-punk textures.
Crutchfield’s moving forward with fuller, more varied arrangements, and longer songs. But Ivy Tripp is a fraction less memorable than her previous two records.
Out in the Storm
2017, 8/10
Crutchfield went through a breakup before Out in the Storm, and recorded a cathartic rock album. She explained to The Fader that “It’s a really powerful state to be in. There’s so much good and bad in it. The grieving is so relatable, and such a profound feeling.”
She recruited an all-female/non-binary band, including Sleater-Kinney touring guitarist Katie Harkin. They provide ferocious backing – the arrangements are more developed than on previous Waxahatchee records. But she doesn’t sacrifice her intimate songwriting, and her voice sounds great in the bigger arrangement.
The churning rocker ‘Never Been Wrong’ is a great opener, with Alison’s harmonies sweetening the sound. The rockers like ‘Silver’ and ‘No Question’ dominate the record, but the acoustic tracks near the end also sound great. ‘A Little More’ is gorgeous and intimate, while ‘Fade’ is a lovely, elegiac closer.
Waxahatchee’s move toward a larger sound is welcome, and she sounds terrific.
Saint Cloud
2020, 8.5/10
Aiving up alcohol and moving to Kansas City to join boyfriend Kevin Morby, Crutchfield reconnected with the country music she rejected in her teens. She told The Guardian that artists like Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, and Emmylou Harris influenced Saint Cloud.
Crutchfield has grown up through her music – Saint Cloud is her fifth solo album, but the first album she’s recorded in her thirties, and it reflects a new maturity and calm. She told Pitchfork that “I started to reject the idea that you have to live your life clumsily and be a big mess to write anything that’s exciting or interesting”.
Crutchfield’s imagery is straightforward and effective, and the folk-country arrangements are pretty with shimmering acoustic guitars and double-tracked lead vocals. Crutchfield’s voice has an emotional warble, and melodies like ‘Ruby Falls’ recall Gillian Welch’s work.
Although most of Saint Cloud is mellow and introspective, some of the best songs are upbeat. Crutchfield described ‘Hell’ to Pitchfork as “a little bit psycho”, but it’s based around a joyful acoustic strum, while ‘Can’t Do Much’ is straightforward and lovely.
Saint Cloud is strong all the way through, but some of the most significant songs are saved for the end. The beautiful ‘Ruby Falls’ is written about a friend who passed from a drug overdose, while the almost title track, ‘St. Cloud’, is sparse and unvarnished, a lovely conclusion.
Saint Cloud is a beautiful, timeless record that brings sunny personality to a well-trodden genre.
Tiger’s Blood
2024, 9/10
Indie artist Katie Crutchfield keeps getting better with each album. Tigers Blood dips back into the Americana sound she explored on 2020’s strong St Cloud. This time, she’s fortunate to be accompanied by MJ Lenderman on guitar and harmonies. Their voices sound beautiful together, recalling Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons on Parsons’s solo records. Her band also includes Spencer Tweedy, son of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, on drums.
The lead single, ‘Right Back To It’, arrived in early January, and it’s still my favourite track of the year. Lenderman’s wobbly voice and tuneful guitar are great foils for Crutchfield.
The Lenderman partnership is so strong that the other tracks with his harmonies are among my favourites, like ‘Evil Spawn’ and the title track. The sparsely arranged ‘365’ departs the furthest from the album’s usual sound, with Crutchfield only accompanied by a quiet guitar.
‘Right Back To It’ is my favourite song of 2024, and Tigers Blood is one of my favourite records of the year.
10 Best Waxahatchee Songs
- Right Back To It
- Peace and Quiet
- Ruby Falls
- Breathless
- Never Been Wrong
- Noccalula
- Evil Spawn
- A Little More
- Can’t Do Much.
Side projects
Plains—I Walked With You A Ways
2022, 7/10
Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson are both singer-songwriters with Southern roots. Crutchfield’s partner, Kevin Morby, introduced the pair in 2017. During the 2020 COVID pandemic, the pair decided to make an album together. They wrote separately, but decided to work differently than usual for the joint project – Crutchfield’s songs are more relaxed than usual. It recalls country music of the 1960s and 1970s, tuneful and relaxed.
Crutchfield is more charismatic than Williamson, but Williamson’s traditional-sounding ‘Abilene’ is lovely. ‘Line of Sight’ is a lovely Crutchfield song – the duo’s harmonies are a feature of the album, and they sound great together here. Morby and Crutchfield co-wrote ‘Last 2 On Earth’, a rare songwriting collaboration between the real-life couple.
Crutchfield and Williamson have made it clear that Plains is a one-off collaboration, but it’s a lovely one.
Snocaps—Snocaps
2025, 7.5/10
Before Katie Crutchfield formed Waxahatchee, she played in P.S. Eliot with her twin sister Alison. The sisters reunite for 2025’s Snocaps, supported by drummer/producer Brad Cook and multi-instrumentalist MJ Lenderman. The quartet recorded Snocaps in Cook’s home studio in a week.
Allison put her music-making on pause a few years back and currently has an amazing career working on the other side of the music business as an A&R at Anti- but she had been dreaming of a return to form. Some time in early 2024 we found ourselves on opposite sides of some strange spectrum of output. I was feeling fatigued by my own voice and ideas. She herself hadn’t made any music in years and was living with a lot of creative frustration. We circled around the idea of making something akin to what we made when we were younger.
Katie Crutchfield’s Substack
The twins harmonise prettily on songs like ‘Brand New Story’ and ‘Cherry Hard Candy’. The raw, Americana-infused sound recalls the cowpunk of Uncle Tupelo.
Snocaps is substantial for a quickly recorded side project.
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