H.C. McEntire - Every Acre

by Zena Grieg

published: 26 / 5 / 2023

Label: Merge Records
Format: CD

intro

Melancholic but ultimately hopeful folk-pop on third solo album from North Carolina singer-songwriter H.C. McEntire

The third solo album by North Carolina singer-songwriter H.C. McEntire, written and recorded on Native American Lands, is a languid collection of meditative, sad but hopeful folk-pop songs with a solid guitar base. Circling around a backdrop of solitude, perseverance and the transitory nature of existence, the songs are carried by an incessant search for meaning. The mood is at times bleak, unremitting in its expression of vulnerability, the musician engaging the listener in a disquieting confrontation with existential themes in a landscape of striking imagery. Songs to listen out for in this nine–track collection include: the opener, the restrained love song plus, ‘New River View’ with its references to contemporary writers and elliptical lyrics: “Bend me and break me/Split me right in two/Mend me and make me/I’ll take more of you/In the high hunter’s moon”; a duet with Kentucky singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman, the bluesy ‘Shadows’ with its accompanying, evocative video; the atmospheric slow-burner rock ‘Turpentine’ with its lengthy guitar solo, navigating a long tortured journey with the stark reality of loss at the end; the country, gospel-tinged piano ballad ‘Dovetail’ with its poetic depiction of the array of different women she has known, women who “Eat only after they pray…/Chase their whiskey with wine…/Not all will want to have their hands tied/And some will never want you gone”; and the sombre ‘Rows of Clover’, burying a “steadfast hound”, with its hypnotic chorus: “It ain’t the easy kind of healing/When you’re down on your knees clawing at the garden”. This is an eclectic album with a fierce and proud sense of place, the words and sounds reverberating beyond the final track.

Track Listing:-

1 New View
2 Shadows (feat. S.G. Goodman)
3 Turpentine (feat. Amy Ray)
4 Dovetail
5 Rows of Clover
6 Big Love
7 Soft Crook
8 Wild for the King
9 Gospel of a Certain Kind

Band Links:-

https://www.hcmcentire.com/
https://www.facebook.com/HCMcEntireNC/
https://twitter.com/HCMcEntire

Label Links:-

http://www.mergerecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Merge-Records-88476979019/timeline/
https://twitter.com/mergerecords
https://www.youtube.com/user/mergerecords