The Crutchfields pick up where they left off.
Snocaps's Snocaps — Snocaps rewards listeners who remember the Crutchfield sisters before Waxahatchee became Americana shorthand — two accomplished songwriters returning to their formative mode, sharper than ever.
The surprise drop landed on Halloween, which felt about right — not for any gothic reason, but because surprise releases thrive on the uncanny, and the existence of Snocaps qualifies. Katie Crutchfield, better known as Waxahatchee and one of the defining voices in American indie and Americana over the past decade, released a debut album under a new name on the last day of October with no advance warning and almost no press. She did it with her twin sister Allison, who has spent the better part of fifteen years fronting Swearin’. They brought in Brad Cook — who has produced every Waxahatchee record since Saint Cloud — and MJ Lenderman, Katie’s partner and one of indie rock’s fastest-rising names, to fill out the band. The result is a 13-track, 33-minute record that sounds like it was made quickly, confidently, and without anyone looking over their shoulder.
It marks the first music the sisters have released together since their P.S. Eliot days — a band that dissolved in 2011 and has occupied a kind of mythological status among fans of Birmingham-bred lo-fi punk ever since. The distance between then and now is audible, not as nostalgia but as earned assurance. The reunion represents more than nostalgia: it’s a reconciliation of two distinct but complementary musical sensibilities — Katie’s reflective Americana-influenced songwriting and Allison’s sharper, hook-filled indie-rock instincts.
The record is all guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. Even the simpler ballads sound gigantic. All four musicians play multiple instruments across the record, and the instrument credits bear that out: Katie on electric guitar, organ, and drums among other roles; Allison on acoustic and electric guitar and bass; Lenderman on 12-string, acoustic, bass, and drums; Cook holding the whole thing together sonically. The last two Waxahatchee records used electric guitars merely as set dressings, but Snocaps foregrounds Lenderman’s louder contributions without turning them into decorations.
The album opens with three of its best tracks in sequence, a confidence move that sets the tone immediately.
“Coast” arrives first and loudest, a declaration of intent running barely two and a half minutes. It builds in tempo and sonic density as it goes, guitars accumulating without ever losing the song’s directness. Additional vocals from Stella Cook and Chris Black add body to the chorus without ornamentation. The opening bars alone probably explain why ANTI- used “COAST” as the presale password — it announces itself as the record’s thesis statement, a rattling, unsentimental reminder that the Crutchfields were making guitar rock before it was fashionable again, and never really stopped.
“Heathcliff” is Allison’s, and it arrives like a car merging into highway traffic — opening with a warming bass lick and Allison’s spirited voice. The literary title is no accident; the lyrics detail a push-pull bond — “I don’t think about us” set against “I’m working your name into every other sentence” — and a chorus that declares “When you go down, you take me down with you,” talking of wariness but sounding like sunniness. Jangly guitars and picked bass underpin a hook that seems to grow stronger with every listen. The relationship deteriorating in “Heathcliff” pitches itself into five-lane traffic — messily, propulsively, with a kind of tuneful recklessness that’s been Allison’s signature since Carrots and Punisher.
“Wasteland” belongs to Katie and is the album’s early summit. A musical drawl that eases by, it’s deceptive — what sounds like restraint is actually compression. The lyrics hit hard: “I’m running hot on empty, firing off some willful bottomline / Gave it everything I had, I am hazmat, I am radioactive / Caustic car wreck, off the rails and rude and ruining your life.” Alt-country grit and a sparse sense of solitude define the track, which explores self-awareness, guilt, and longing. When the sisters harmonize here, they sound innately simpatico — and it’s the moment the record tips from good into essential. Cook’s room-tone production works wonders for Katie’s diction, leaving her voice exposed and enormous in the mix.
Three tracks in, Snocaps has made its case. The remaining ten don’t squander it.