Waxahatchee: Cerulean Salt – review

The songs Katie Crutchfield sings as Waxahatchee are like scalpels: they slice through her life, her loves and her dreams, ruthlessly excising any hint of self-deceit. Listen to how she addresses a boy in Swan Dive: "Won't you sleep with me every night for a week/ Won't you just let me pretend this is the love I need? I will grow out of all the empty words I often speak, and you will be depleted but much better off without me." On paper, it seems like self-pity, but when her vocal ploughs across the pattering rhythm (played – in an ironic twist – by her present boyfriend, Keith Spencer), what you hear is brutal honesty. Her melancholy frankness is even more compelling in Brother Bryan: "We destroy all of our esteem" she sings, over a curdled bassline and thumped drums; Dixie Cups and Jars adds a note of buzzing fury in guitar and words alike, as she watches a wedding, makeup set on the bride's face like tar, and plots her small-town escape. There's not much playfulness here or, surprisingly, vulnerability: Crutchfield finds too much strength in sadness for that.