Lori McKenna

I picked up a CD called Bittertown by Lori McKenna about a month ago, and I can't get enough. I'd call it earthy acoustic folk with an edge. Without thinking about it much, I'd say the main theme of the CD is "fucked-up life in smalltown America." Her songs are about the messiness that smalltown folk seem to have a special knack for getting themselves into, but I doubt it's limited to them. We all know the disasters we have the capacity to create for ourselves. McKenna riffs on them, pushes deep into them, animates them, says the unutterable about them, and somehow in doing so her music redeems a bit of local, messy humanity. Go, girl.