Massachusetts

Massachusetts

With honesty, conviction, and a touch of grace, Lori McKenna dissects real-life love and sorrow on her sixth album, Massachusetts. The same sort of kitchen-table poetry and concise melodic flow that’s earned her covers by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw are in evidence in these tracks, produced with a clean folk-rock edge by Mark Erelli. McKenna stays true to her core strengths here, whether she’s painting affectionate portraits of marriage (“Better with Time,” “How Romantic Is That?”), saying farewell to children leaving the nest (“My Love Follows Where You Go,” “Grown Up Now”), or lamenting a deeply felt loss (“Susanna”). Both her toughness and vulnerability come through in the angry “Salt” and the aching “Make Every Word Hurt.” Moving beyond the personal, she mourns a vanishing community in the finely detailed “Smaller and Smaller.” Banjos and fiddles highlight her links with modern country, though she favors biting electric guitars and rock rhythms on some tracks. McKenna’s sturdy vocals—as resolute and bittersweet as her music—bring out the plainspoken wisdom that runs through these unflinching, compassionate songs.

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