‘A beautiful and energetic small-town country spitfire who packs a punch with a sultry tone, a warm heart, a wide smile and a fun-loving spirit.’ That, is the all-encompassing description of the artist Samantha Rae, a country musician who combines all of her natural traits with the skill of being a producer, songwriter and an overall creative.
Samantha Rae performs as a New England-area headliner and also supports national acts as a high-energy opening act. Some of her achievements include multiple nominations such as ‘Country Artist of the Year – Female’ by the Josie Music Awards out of Nashville, Tennessee, ‘Country Song of the Year’ for the single ‘Taking Me Down’ by the InterContinental Music Awards out of Los Angeles, California, and having won the ‘Album of the Year’ award from Indie Boulevard Magazine for her debut album, ‘The High Road’.
She has also amassed 1/3 of a million Spotify streams on the same debut album, with 80,000 algorithmic Spotify listener recommendations attached to the release and 1/2 a million streams across all streaming platforms.
In terms of being an opening act, she has performed shows that include Armalee, LoCash, David Nail, Tyler Farr, Sugar Ray, Lady A, Keith Urban, Carly Pearce, The Randy Rogers Band, Chase Rice and Dierks Bentley.
It is also noted that Samantha Rae co-writes and co-produces all of her original music with her creative partner and manager, Jay Dellisola. They write and produce in their home studio, working directly with an established team of Country music makers in Nashville to craft a unique sound tailored to her energetic and sultry vocal tone. They also outsource, travelling to London often to work at the legendary Abbey Road studio.
With all this information brewing high expectations, let’s listen to ‘The High Road’, an album that has already garnered a lot of praise.
The album’s contents definitely match the hype, living up to what it’s purported to be. It’s definitely reimagined country music, with mastering and compositional standards to match the time period. There’s spunk and attitude sprinkled throughout all of the songs, and I can certainly infer how Samantha’s vocal timbre influences her artistic choices and decisions- it has a smoothness to it, without being necessarily broken or too wispy, with the sassiness of someone confident of her vocals mixed with a little bit of Lisa Marie Presley’s vocal eccentricities, just in a much flowier manner.
In terms of the album itself, the whole masterpiece is very well-mastered with no instrumentation or compositional segment necessarily out of place. The aim to fulfil an adequate amount of linguistic variation is achieved by the lengthening of melodic pieces within key instruments in each song, and none of the songs are necessarily monotonous. The tiny, weak point of this album is the lack of innovation. It works well and thrives as a celebrated scepter of country music traditions, but perhaps to entice listeners, a little bit of experimentation to other subgenres of maybe folk, rock or gothic music could’ve helped to elevate the experience. Otherwise, I think that in terms of a true-blue modern country album that sticks to tradition, it’s no surprise that this album won an award.
The songs can be categorised and attached to various facets and strengths that chronicle Samantha Rae’s ability to be somewhat versatile and the dimensions of her emotions. There are songs like ‘Taking Me Down’ and ‘Burning In My Soul’ that reflect the skill of crafting an energetic number that’ll definitely have the crowd reciting along, sort of in a stadium-rock-but-country version, while songs like ‘Gaslighter’ and ‘Pinocchio’ provide the listen with a bit more depth, tackling themes of deception and sassier vocal melodic tones using certain themes like ‘Western Desert’ style or even a bit of blues to complement the more varied choices of chord progressions apparent during these songs, taking you through a richer and more holistic emotional rollercoaster as you listen to it. Another subcategory of songs visible in this album is the softer, emotionally charged and chill numbers, such as ‘I See in You’ and ‘Time’, showing aspects of artistic vulnerability, accented by the constant strums of the guitar and the sweet background vocals without losing an edge at all.
Another plus point to this release is how you can hear aspects of different instrumentation, be it the banjo or even just the simple electric guitar, shining through with various melodic chops and solos sprinkled within these songs. Some percussion changes apparent also help to provide excitation to what would hypothetically be a dull percussive section, but it delivers on all aspects: melody and rhythm. Samantha also boasts a wide vocal range, which will definitely grace your ears when she puts the emphasis on delivery when it comes to certain lyrics, hitting highs that still aesthetically match her groove. All in all, a decent album.
SCORE/ Excellent – The High Road is an album that delivers all that is distinct about Country music without sacrificing convention for quality. It has emotional depth and enough variation beyond simply technicality, aided and elevated by the thundering voice of a proficient songstress that knows her niche and how to execute it within her means. An interesting symbiosis of artist, producer, background singers, as well as instrumentalists.
[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]
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