Katie Pruitt’s voice is a marvel. On her debut album, last year’s aptly titled Expectations (Rounder), the Nashville songwriter proves virtuosic in her vocals, floating with lightness and sinking with a withering ache, but just as capable of surging with a powerful shattering wail.
That range proves pivotal to the emotion packed into Expectations, a statement of independence and strengths as she reconciles her coming out with her Southern, Christian upbringing. Songs like “Georgia” pack an emotional punch, caught between a love for her family and fear of revealing her true self, yet “Loving Her” strikes more confidently and directly in completing the personal revelation.
Pruitt hardly settles into confessionals, however, the title track rocking with a gleam of wild-eyed teenage restlessness, and “Wishful Thinking” unloading a crescendo of heartbreak and want. The time bomb of “Grace Has a Gun” slowly winds a tortured tension that snaps in a suicidal wrecking ball of grief.
As a songwriter, the 27-year-old paints poignancy into the details, with stories of unexpected strength and fierce vulnerability that follow in the wake of influences like Brandi Carlile. Latest single “Look the Other Way” likewise roars behind her emerging rock inclinations to meet her forceful vocals, as Pruitt steps to the fore of the next generation of powerful Americana voices.
Saturday, 3:20pm, BMI stageThis article appears in October 1 • 2021.
