Courtney Marie Andrews – ‘Valentine’ album review: A good record, that’s all
Any album made by Courtney Marie Andrews is bound to be beautiful. With a voice like hers, it’s impossible for it not to be. But is vocal beauty alone enough to make a ninth album stick? Or to make a splash with a comeback?
The Skinny: Bad reviews are easy to write. Reviews of albums that are striking, unique and feel almost history are even easier to write as the enthusiasm pours like a tap stuck open and there’s normally even too much to possibly fit in the word count. But the job gets hard when something is simply good.
Valentine by Courtney Marie Andrews is good. The opening track, ‘Pendulum Swings’, could even have you believing it’s more than that. After a three-year hiatus where the artist wrote poetry and made more physical art, the opening notes of the record’s first track kick up the goosebumps instantly. Andrews’ voice is one of those stunning and special ones that feels foolproof. Surely there is no one in the entire world who wouldn’t enjoy hearing it, and as we reunite with it here, the reminder of that elevates the song even more as it soars instantly.
There’s also an instant recognition that something different is being done here. The acoustic guitar and Andrews’ voice still sit at the top of the mix, keeping her firmly rooted in her home genre of indie folk and Americana. But in the layers under that, it immediately feels more expansive and cinematic, as if the landscape has been widened.
It’s a great start, a strong start, and there are plenty of moments that keep up that quality throughout the record, namely on the mid-way track, ‘Little Picture Of A Butterfly’, which brings in some interesting ambient and electronic details.
But overwhelmingly, Valentine is good. It’s the sort of album that, rather than commanding attention, commands the background, filtering into a backdrop soundtrack no matter how many times I hit replay and tried to refocus. It could be argued that that is a compliment, as Andrews undeniably exists in that specific still-alternative, but definitely easy-listening world, and there is definitely a part of indie-folk where being a soundtrack to make normal life feel like a movie is the mission.
However, what it lacks is a grip on all levels. I was struck to hear that so much of Andrews’ recent years have been spent writing poetry, when often the lyrics here feel like the limpest element. “I wanna be an outsider, it’s too painful looking in,” she sings on ‘Outsider’, where the entire song feels built of clichéd ideas of belonging, of giving people “the world” and being shown “the door”. Perhaps from a Simon and Schuster-published writer, I expected more, but really, what we have here is Rupi Kaur-style sentiments masquerading as profundity.
The Verdict: Valentine is good, really, it’s good. It’s nice, and it’s lovely, and it’s beautiful. It’s dynamic in its sonics and broader than anything the artist has presented before. It’s a welcome comeback of a beautiful voice. However, ‘good’ is the hardest category of them all, when there’s not much more to say, and not much to hook onto.
Stand out track: ‘Little Picture Of A Butterfly’
Release date: January 16th, 2025 | Producer: Courtney Marie Andrews and Jerry Bernhardt | Label: Thirty Tigers
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