Sneaking up on you’ is an apt description for the Choctaw singer – songwriter’s seventh album. Some notable exceptions aside, Gumshoe works its considerable charms unhurriedly, gradually growing in stature and allure, and amply rewarding an attentive listener.
Musically, Gumshoe retains Crain’s now familiar electrified folk-rock settings, but a fair deal has changed since 2020’s I Guess We Live Here Now. Whereas Crain’s songwriting has typically engaged in observation from the perspective of a perpetual lone wolf, Gumshoe – inspired by a burgeoning new relationship – looks inwards and also at significant others, reflecting on the limitations of solitary commitment to the fierce DIY independence of total self-reliance, and recognising the potential of a more symbiotic lifestyle built on sharing and mutual support: as one of the songs here has it, ‘’you’ve got it bad, but you’ve got me’’.
The uncharacteristically muscular yet melancholy groove of the immediately captivating "Dart" – which alongside the murky momentum of opener "Dragonfly" drops hints of Rosali’s recent albums, maybe – hones in on the initial stages of the gradually deepening connections of a new relationship (‘’I know you so little that I know everything’’), but it’s not all giddiness and sunbeams. The drowsy acoustic drift of "Melatonin" casually lists assorted everyday items (soap, ice cream, vitamins…) Crain brought to her partner while they were in rehab, with the track’s initially almost artlessly mundane cataloguing gradually blooming into an affecting testimonial of the healthiness of letting your guard down and allowing yourself to be relied on – and relying on others in turn. Similar themes of recognizing the limitations of a steadfast commitment to self-reliance also percolate elsewhere on Gumshoe, including highlights such as the beautifully spectral "Fool’s Paradise" and the languid yearning of 'Neptune Baby”, with its refrain "I’m the boat and you’re the water".
The title track, meanwhile, is an instant classic, a heartfelt devotional to new love dressed in the language of vintage detective stories that nods towards Adrianne Lenker (solo and in Big Thief) both in the rootsy but driving arrangement and Crain’s richly expressive, gently quivering vocals. Similar traces can be detected on the expansive, big chorused folk-rock of closer "Old Hallicrafter Radio".
