by Roberto Johnson

Building on the territory covered in their respective solo careers, I Walked With You A Ways is the most deliberate dive into hard-truth country-folk that either have made

The basis for the new collaboration between Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson stretches well beyond mutual admiration. Plains, the name of their recently announced joint project, reads as a direct ode to the musical terrain the duo appears destined to occupy, as well as the places that lie at the source of its inception.

At this stage of their respective careers, both songwriters have found solace by leaning into the heartwarming twang and cold-hard truth telling of country music in an effort to bridge the gaps between their past and present. While each have incorporated these elements into recent solo works (most notably on Williamson’s Texas Blue and Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud), their debut as Plains, I Walked With You A Ways, marks their most deliberate plunge into the mode – arriving in the form of tender, harmony-laden country-folk that lands somewhere between Trio and Lucinda Williams.

Written between Kansas City, Marfa, and Los Angeles, the record’s humble Americana sound bears origins that spread far and wide, but its heart beats the loudest when envisioning the sweeping plateaus of middle America and the rural south. The songs here belong to empty highways under big skies, forgotten small towns teeming with hidden beauty, and driftless dreamers who’ve loved and lost on their way to hard-earned freedom. Across this endearing set of sparkling duets and achingly beautiful ballads, Crutchfield and Williamson tap into the oft-overlooked wonder of their native southland while retaining the immediacy of their well-established songwriting styles. It’s an album layered with songs of deep emotional resonance, anchored by two distinct voices who sound comfortably at home in their rekindled love affair with traditional roots music.

The material on I Walked With You A Ways is anything but indulgent. Absent are the syrupy pedal steel licks and the abundance of carefully-calculated solos that often grace classic country recordings. Instead, the work hangs its hat atop a totem that prioritises song craft, centering heavily around the duo’s tightly-intertwined voices and honey-coated hooks. The marigold melodies on album opener, Summer Sun, start the record on a highpoint – its chorus vibrating with the warmth of a rosy horizon just before dusk. Another Williamson-led number, Abilene, renders a portrait of triumph and heartbreak with painterly strokes of southern imagery, while Bellafatima invokes the angelic lullabies of the Parton-Harris-Ronstadt triumvirate at their most solemn.

The most anthemic cuts come by way of Crutchfield’s vocal on Line of Sight and Problem With It, a plaintive country rocker that recalls the earthy jams of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, a well documented guidepost for both Plains’ members. The lyrical specificity that makes Lucinda Williams’ seminal alt-country record so captivating looms large on other deep cuts as well, such as Hurricane (‘I come in like a cannon ball / I’ve been that way my whole life / Sweet as honeysuckle / When you want a pocket knife’).

The degree of depth Plains is able to find in simplicity speaks to the scope of Crutchfield and Williamson’s journeys, and the deep connection they share with the musical lineage they have always been destined to be a part of. In revisiting the sound of their roots, they’ve delivered a solid entry to the modern canon and uncovered paths that are bound to lead to plentiful vistas.

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