Lucy Scholl is another to join the crop of young women looking to make a mark on the country music industry. Just 20 years old, she’s already been working on her craft for some years, recognizing the importance of getting things right early on. She teamed up with producer Brandon Metcalf (Due West, Secondhand Serenade) to record her debut EP this year, and spent much of the time travelling back and forth between the Nashville studio, her home in Dallas, and touring round the country. It was all worth it however for an artist whose musical identity and sound has been compared to Taylor Swift, albeit one with a lot more traditional country influence in her work. Still, there’s something about her youthful vulnerability and handle on strong, catchy songcraft that draws those comparisons without much hesitation.
Her self-titled EP (due July 22nd) consists of five tracks, heralded by the lead single ‘Feel Alright’, which incidentally was written after a year of soul-searching and began the process for the record. At the base of it, it’s a simple love song; yet there’s a knowingness in it that perhaps doesn’t provide her with the clarity of what she knows, but caught up in her own innocence there’s something fascinating about the way she builds her world going through ‘All My Life’. As with very early Taylor Swift, the songs are laid-back summery country goodness, drinking in strong pop hooks like a tall glass of ice cold lemonade. Luckily it’s not all cupcakes and butterflies, because tracks like ‘Blue Eyes’ turn the love story on its head and show the shade with the light, the almost overpowering fiddle line tearing on heartstrings and emphasizing the desperation and ruination she feels.
There is a depth to Lucy’s musings that causes you stop thinking of her as the young girl just starting out and more as simply an artist with plenty to express. ‘Running On Empty’ broods in equal parts country and pop, the polished production going head to hear against bluesy guitar licks and aching pedal steel, alongside lyrics that mourn the death of a relationship that is living in denial. ‘Stay A While’, in another layer of intriguing maturity, clings either to a friend or lover (or both) and begs them to stay until they both have to deal with the requirements of the world. With surprising ambiguity over the nature of the relationship, she identifies with human nature that needs someone close just because, and that is a sentiment that many do not consider.
Lucy Scholl battles with emotions from both ends of the spectrum and new ones in between for this debut release, showing off a great skillset of strong, connecting vocals, clever, relatable songcraft and sweet country sounds encapsulated within a pop structure that makes her very listenable. I’m excited to see where she’ll go from here because if mainstream country music is lacking women, then she deserves a place.
