New West Records

On March 3rd, East Nashville firebrand Lilly Hiatt released Royal Blue - the feisty, adventurous and smart follow-up to her critically lauded debut full-length Let Down. Recorded at producer Adam Landry’s (Deer Tick, Diamond Rugs, T. Hardy Morris) Nashville studio Playground Sound, the twelve new tracks skirt the edges of any neat genre definitions, boldly combining sounds of Austin folk rock, pacific northwest indie, pre-Oasis britpop, 90’s alt guitars, 00’s indie synths and New York punk circa 1977.

Often presented with naked autobiographical candor, the new collection of songs is filtered through a wide spectrum of lenses - flashes of humor, attitude, deep worry and gritty determination can be heard - but ultimately, Hiatt would rather rock than mope. The album opener, “Far Away,” marries a shimmery Cure-ish synth theme to a steady rock-and-roll backbeat, as Lilly explains the devastating realities of love gone sour. The surging surf-country number “Machine” hints at rebellious adolescence while “Somebody’s Daughter” is a nod to Lilly’s songwriting father, John Hiatt. The end result is a genre-defying, yet thematically coherent, collection of songs that epitomizes Hiatt’s songwriting evolution and transformation through playful experimentation in sound and subject matter.