One of the most intimate moments on Out in the Storm, the new album from Katie Crutchfield’s Waxahatchee, comes almost exactly halfway through the 10-track record. In “Sparks Fly,” a warbly midtempo indie-rock number laid over a bed of ethereal noises that sound like they’re being amplified underwater, Crutchfield serenely sings, “And I see myself through my sister’s eyes / I’m a live wire, electrified.”
Crutchfield’s twin sister Allison released her own remarkable solo album earlier this year, which makes this a powerful moment — we get a look into the compelling bond the two share, not to mention learning that Katie had, at some point, lost sight of herself in a romantic relationship. That’s not an easy thing to admit to yourself or your sister, let alone to fans listening in via the album. But throughout Out in the Storm, Crutchfield makes the most of coming back from a dark place by examining — and often torching — the relationship that made her lose her way in the first place.
In the power-pop-tinged opening track “Never Been Wrong,” Crutchfield admits she did things she’s not proud of, singing, “I spent all my time learning how to defeat you at your own game / It’s embarrassing.” In “No Question,” another rollicking number that buzzes with mid-’90s Letters to Cleo vibes, Crutchfield vents about a frustrating, competitive dynamic: “My objective was blind / You were always looking for a fight / An invisible race / We’ll be in it ’til one of us dies.”
Each song highlights a different piece of what went wrong: Ego, distance and infidelity are all mentioned. Even the album art leans into the narrative, showing Crutchfield in the midst of what looks like a chaotic moment, her wavy brunette hair whipping across her face. But surprisingly, Crutchfield has found a way to relive and release all the frustration without the sadness or anger that usually comes with such an exercise. There’s just a pinch of bitterness, and it sounds like it’s justified.
Compared to Waxahatchee’s impressive 2015 release Ivy Tripp, which was hailed for its quiet songs, Out in the Storm feels much bolder. Ivy Tripp’s intimacy feels secretive. The intimacy is still there in Out in the Storm, it’s just louder — Crutchfield no longer whispers, asking us to lean in close to see her vulnerability. She’s forcing every last bit of air from her lungs at times, joyfully declaring that she’s learned some shit between then and now, and she’s unashamed that those lessons didn’t come without failure.
In this case, the failure was not that the relationship didn’t work, as albums so often lead us to believe — the failure was in how the relationship caused her to lose herself, to lose her spark. Now it’s over, and as Crutchfield sings on “Sparks Fly,” she’s able to “see herself clearly” again. Out in the Storm isn’t a lament about how everything went wrong — it’s a victory lap, celebrating that she finally got it right.
