WAXAHATCHEE - Snocaps

The twin sisters Katie and Allison Crutchfield, from Birmingham, Alabama, already had a solid repertoire of original songs by the age of fifteen, put together with their High School classmates Michael McClellan and Carter Wilson. An energetic Nineties college-rock sound, halfway between indie-pop and power punk, indebted to all-female bands such as Belly and Breeders. Katie sings and plays guitar, Allison handles keyboards. They quickly put down roots in the local DIY scene under the name Ackleys, thanks to the album “The Ackleys” (2005) and the EP “Forget Forget, Derive Derive” (2006), showing considerable potential. But when the rest of the band enrolled in different colleges, the group found itself unable to carry on.

The experience wasn't wasted, though: the stubborn twins, already with a clearly defined idea in mind, were back in action within a few weeks, evolving out of that primordial cocoon. In 2007 the legacy of Ackleys sprouted into P.S. Eliot: Katie sang and played guitar, while Allison moved from keyboards to drums. The songwriting grew more refined, while still remaining within the realm of pop songs heavily tinged with punk attitude. The debut arrived in 2008 with "The Bike Wreck Demo", followed by two albums, "Introverted Romance In Our Troubled Minds" in 2009 and "Sadie" in 2011 (their best), with the Ep "Living In Squalor" released in between. The sound remained strongly influenced by typical Nineties college-rock, as evidenced by "Untitled", a track taken from "Sadie".

Unable to see any further room for improvement, the band nonetheless split up early, driven by a mutual need - especially on the part of the two sisters - to pursue different, more personal paths. Before parting ways, they released "Demonstration" on their Bandcamp page, a collection of fifteen demos, home-recorded versions of already-released songs. In 2016 came the posthumous release of "Anthology 2007-2011", an exhaustive collection of everything in existence under the P.S. Eliot name, including alternate versions and demos, for a total of fifty tracks: an essential compendium for anyone wanting to dig deeper into the journey of the still very young Crutchfield twins. All of the P.S. Eliot releases, as well as all of the Ackleys releases, can still be found on the major music streaming platforms.

Alongside P.S. Eliot, Katie and Allison also fed their compositional appetite through the short-lived Bad Banana project, a dispensable quartet remembered only for the very lo-fi home recordings gathered on the album "Crushfield" (2010) and the subsequent Ep "Cry About It" (2011). Meanwhile, the sisters left their native Birmingham in search of new stimuli and opportunities. They moved first to Philadelphia, and later to Brooklyn, because that's where things happen in the art world. And things did happen, for real: Katie would go on to become one of the most authoritative voices in the new americana scene under the stage name Waxahatchee, while Allison took centre stage in Swearin', alongside a semi-hidden solo career, before eventually landing a job as an A&R at a record label.

Years went by, and then, on Halloween 2025, with no warning whatsoever, came "Snocaps", the self-titled debut album of the new project signed by the Crutchfield twins, who brought on board for the occasion MJ Lenderman, guitarist of Wednesday (by now also a well-regarded leader of his own band), and producer Brad Cook, already a frequent collaborator of Katie's. It's twelve tracks (plus a short closing reprise) of country-pop, through which the twins offer up a compendium of their shared past.

On the new songs, Katie and Allison always keep a firm hold on centre stage, with Lenderman far more restrained than the Neil Young-style rides and noise excursions he's accustomed us to, even if his imprint is unmistakable from the very first notes of opener "Coast", the track chosen as the single, for which a promotional video was also made.

Katie and Allison split the space evenly, confirming a top-tier songwriting partnership, moving between tales of car getaways and accounts of various addictions. The sound is generally quite full, with just a couple of tracks left in a more minimal state, the meditative "Hide" (which opens like U2's "All I Want Is You") and "I Dont't Want To". The pop-oriented side prevails on tracks like "Heathcliff" and "Wasteland", while "Angel Wings" carries a whiff of country roots, a fairly breezy indie rock touch runs through "Brand New City", "Over Our Heads", "Doom" and "You In Rehab", while "Cherry Hard Candy" and "Avalanche" radiate real sunniness. The Crutchfields and Lenderman swap instruments (guitars, bass, drums) throughout with total ease, without a single song ever losing an ounce of its impact.

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04/11/2025