Lori McKenna is the model of a slow-burning success: her 10th album, The Bird and the Rifle, picked up a slew of Grammy nominations in 2017, and she won country song of the year for Humble and Kind, a hit for Tim McGraw – which also won the Country Music Association’s song of the year award (which she’d won the previous year, too). The Tree is another fabulous, understated record: 10 songs about families and domesticity, and the tensions of everyday life, and one (Like Patsy Would) about the aspirations of someone trying to write about the world as well as Hemingway and sing about it as well as Cline.
You can maybe guess the quality and sound of The Tree from noting that it’s produced by Dave Cobb, who also plays guitar: he’s been a common thread on much of the best country over recent years, working with artists who favour small band set-ups, rather then pop country’s flash and bang. McKenna’s and his styles are perfectly suited to each other: a gentle lollop, a hint of twang, letting the lyrics do the lifting.
And McKenna’s eye for detail is terrific: the man who’s “got bicycle tires and lawn mower parts / Miles of wires and kitchen drawer knobs”, but no idea what parts he needs to mend his marriage (The Fixer), or the woman who will “spray the soap from the bathroom tiles / Cut the threads off the kitchen towels”, knowing her husband won’t notice she’s left (You Won’t Even Know I’m Gone). It’s an album for grown-ups, contemplative and wise.
