Snocaps

Snocaps

(Anti-)

Katie Crutchfield has become one of the artists I trust without hesitation. The kind where I stop asking whether the next record will matter and instead wonder how it will find another place in my life. Saint Cloud was a gentle resurrection. Tigers Blood was one of my albums of 2024, full of dusty highways and quiet manifestations. Then there is MJ Lenderman, whose guitar playing has somehow become its own piece of Waxahatchee’s world. Between Boat Songs, Manning Fireworks and his work with Wednesday, he’s built a mythology out of beer-stained poetry, broken pickup trucks and solos that always arrive exactly when your heart needs convincing. 

So Snocaps already carried impossible expectations. Somehow, they delivered on those expectations. What could have easily been marketed as an indie supergroup instead feels like four people remembering why they started making music before careers, critics and festival posters complicated everything. Katie and Allison Crutchfield haven't made a full record together since the PS Eliot days, and that history hums beneath every harmony. This wasn’t built around desire to market themselves or hit the top of the charts. It was built around muscle memory. Recorded quickly with Brad Cook and MJ Lenderman, the songs never sound overworked. They breathe. They stumble in beautiful ways. They trust instinct over perfection. And I completely attached myself to this record for months when it arrived on vinyl. 

Opening track 'Coast' feels exactly like its title. Salt air. Open windows. The strange relief of finally arriving somewhere after years of driving in circles. Katie and Allison don’t compete for attention. They orbit one another, their voices carrying decades of shared history that no producer could manufacture. Lenderman quietly threads everything together with guitar lines that don’t overpower. They simply exist, like telephone poles passing by during a long drive.  

'Heathcliff' immediately reconnects with the ragged DNA of PS Eliot. There’s youthful energy underneath older bones. Allison delivers it with enough grit to remind you she never stopped being one of indie rock’s most underrated songwriters, even while Katie’s profile exploded through Waxahatchee.  

Katie takes over on 'Wasteland', and suddenly you’re standing somewhere familiar again. I absolutely love this song. It gives me goosebumps. The lyrical precision she’s refined across Saint Cloud and Tigers Blood is still there, but now it’s roughened around the edges. Less polished, more lived in. Like finding an old denim jacket that somehow fits even better fifteen years later. I live for this feeling. And it’s even better if there’s a folded $50 in the pocket still - that’s the addition of MJ Lenderman. 

Then 'Cherry Hard Candy', is definitely one of the album’s centrepieces. Sweetness wrapped around something bitter enough to leave an impression. That’s always been Katie’s greatest gift. She writes songs that initially feel comforting until you realise she’s quietly describing survival. The melodies invite you closer before the lyrics pull the floor away. And that’s her greatest gift. 

I kept finding myself listening for MJ Lenderman, and maybe that’s inevitable. I’m hopelessly biased. Every time his guitar appears, it feels conversational rather than performative. He doesn’t play solos so much as finish everyone else’s sentences. After hearing what he brought to Waxahatchee’s 'Right Back To It', and watching his own songwriting continue to bloom, his fingerprints here feel reassuring rather than distracting. He’s become one of indie music’s great additions, somehow making everyone around him sound even more like themselves. And I knew right away that he did drums on 'Brand New City'. It’s a condition now, that I have. 

The middle stretch never chases obvious singles. Instead it settles into something rarer: listener’s trust. These songs don’t need grand crescendos because they’re built on chemistry that’s impossible to fake. Brad Cook’s production leaves enough empty space for every harmony, every scrape of guitar and every imperfect breath to remain intact. It feels like sitting in the room while the tape rolls. And I think the over-polishing would have ruined the authenticity of this record completely. 

By the time 'Over Our Heads' arrives, the emotional weight has quietly accumulated. It doesn’t announce itself as the album’s heart. It simply becomes one. Adult life hangs over the song without becoming cynical. There is exhaustion here, but also resilience. That delicate balance has always been where the Crutchfields do their finest work. Gosh, it’s such a beautiful song. Like a flower poking out of the mud. It’s ragged musically, but damn the lyrical power lifts everything!!! 

'You In Rehab' might be the hardest listen on the record. Family has always lingered around the edges of both sisters’ songwriting, but here it steps fully into the light. The harmonies become an act of holding each other upright. It is compassionate without becoming sentimental, and perhaps the clearest reminder that this reunion isn’t about revisiting the past. It’s about surviving long enough to sing through it together. And for such a hard theme it’s an incredibly upbeat song. 

There is plenty of current indie folklore wrapped up inside Snocaps. The Crutchfield sisters finally finding one another again after years of separate lives. Brad Cook producing yet another record that feels effortlessly human. MJ Lenderman continuing his remarkable run, somehow appearing everywhere without ever feeling overexposed. But lore only gets you through the front door.

The songs have to stay. These do.

Snocaps don’t really feel like discovering a new band its more like finding a photograph you forgot existed. The colours have faded a little. The edges are worn. Yet somehow the memories inside it have become even sharper. And I’m honestly quoting a little bit of Waxahatchee here, but it fits and I’m not sorry. If Waxahatchee has always written about learning how to carry yourself through life, Snocaps is about discovering you don’t always have to carry it alone. Sometimes your oldest harmony is still waiting exactly where you left it.

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