Granted, it’s not the most common thing to have your album release show two months after your album came out, but we do things a bit differently in Chicago, and Louisiana-born Chicago-based singer/songwriter Carolina Chauffe of Hemlock knows this to be true. Back in October, Hemlock, the phone-fi alt-folk passion project of swamp-raised Carolina Chauffe, released their latest album 444 only a handful of months after their second EP amen! back in April but are just now getting around to giving us the album release show we deserve. So yes, this album review is a bit late but it will hopefully not only serve as the inspiration you need to finally listen to this new Hemlock album but also as a call-to-arms for all those who are not busy on December 12th and can make it over to Constellation to support Hemlock as they introduce Chicago to their newest collection of 12 friends they liked to call 444.
Hemlock is an artist with quite a story to tell. In fact, it would seem that they are burdened with stories to tell if you checked out their back catalog of eight full-length albums (eight if you count the two demo albums that came out in 2018 and 2020), six of which are part of a song-a-day challenge where they wrote and recorded a song every day for a month and then released those recordings at the end of that same month. If that kind of work ethic isn’t respectable to you then you may not be from this planet because I for one can not even fathom the creativity, talent, ambition, and determination it takes to write and record a new song every day for a month and release it out into the world with confidence and pride. Even if many artists could do that, hardly any have the patience for it but that’s something Carolina Chauffe has in spades; patience and a love for all things song.
Although I have personally not listened to all of Hemlock’s discography, I have been watching them closely ever since I first saw them perform live opening for Told Slant at Beat Kitchen in April of 2023. I was awestruck by Carolina’s confidence and passion for their craft as they told story after story of the swamplands they hail from and all the interesting travels they’ve made along the way from there to Chicago. Fast forward to October of this year where Hemlock is fresh off the release of their second non-song-a-day, non-demo album 444. The album follows the release of 2022’s talk soon which seemed to be Hemlock’s first album outside of the song-a-day challenges and demo tracks they built up through the years.
Having listened to talk soon many times (check out the song "talk soon" for a great taste of what the album has to offer) in addition to a handful of other tracks from albums prior, it is with great confidence and excitement that I proclaim 444 to be Hemlock’s masterpiece, their magnum opus, and the truest expression of their artistic vision up to this point in time, at least in my humble opinion. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic but I’ve just never felt so much and loved so greatly a Hemlock record before, and I don’t think it’s any mystery why. It should be so clear to any listener or fan of their past work that 444 is such a powerhouse of a folk record on all fronts in ways that their past albums didn’t ascertain. It’s just a very special and exciting thing to see an artist you admire grow and evolve from one vessel to another and 444 has me incredibly eager to see where Carolina goes from here.
To record 444, Carolina Chauffe enlisted the help of friends in Friko, Free Range, and Red PK, a few of Chicago’s greatest unsung indie bands. For the first time, this album feels less like a Carolina passion project and more like a fully realized expression of sound from four powerhouse musicians of the Chicago indie scene with each musician firing on all cylinders.
The album starts perfectly and aptly with “Day One”, a song that dates back to their 2019 album february. This version is a bit slower but benefits from a more professional production and a more pronounced vocal performance; you can really hear those five years in Carolina’s voice and it’s incredible how far they’ve come in such a short amount of time. The song sets the stage beautifully for the rest of the album but does so in a way where it’s not stuck fighting for its own moment in the sun as some transitional intro track without a sense of purpose but more so as a song that celebrates Hemlock’s roots and foundations before showing you all the new tools they’ve added to their musical toolbox with 444.
“Hyde Park” comes rolling on to center stage with some twangy drums and slide guitar and Carolina singing about the birds of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Right off the bat, you can hear the difference between this project and projects prior as songs like “Hyde Park” have lush full-band instrumentation and gorgeously pristine yet ruggedly organic production that takes me back to the happiness I felt when Julien Baker upped the ante on 2021’s Little Oblivions by adding percussion and scores of other lovely layers of instrumentation that enhanced their already impressive sound that much more.
The fun continues with “Drive & Drive”, probably the first song I fell in love with on this record. The song oozes with a dark indie folk soundscape that you wouldn’t be surprised to hear on a Squirrel Flower album with its electrified yet contemplative energy. The song is an outright rocker and might be the first of its kind in Hemlock’s discography as I don’t recall hearing another song similar to this throughout all my prior listenings; it may be a new badge but Hemlock wears it with honor, privilege, and excitement for all the future songs that have yet to be born.
Next, we have an early personal favorite of mine called “How to go on loving (when the living breaks your heart)”, a song that wears its influences on its sleeve, and those influences begin and end with the legendary and iconic Lucinda Williams. After all, just listen to the way Carolina sings the word “baby” throughout the song; is that not the most Lucinda Williams-esque pronunciation of that word you’ve ever heard?! This song has one of the most beautiful progressions throughout its runtime as it goes from this quiet, deeply intimate vocal performance backed by some lone gentle acoustic strummings into this beautiful full-band alt-country ballad ruminating on the distressing cards life deals you sometimes in just the purest Lucinda fashion. Both are from Louisiana so there should be no surprises here that Lucinda is and probably always has been a massive influence on Carolina’s songwriting but that’s one influence I’ll never complain about ever hearing in a new song.
“Depot Dog”, an ode to all the Chicago Home Depots that offer hot dogs, is another driving rocker of a song in the same dusky vain of MJ Lenderman or Waxahatchee when they’re at their most electrified. Every time I listen to this song it quickly becomes my favorite off the album but it’s a bittersweet love because this song brings up one of the only criticisms I have of this album which is that some of the best songs on here like “Depot Dog” are just too damn short, over before they began. By the time you get to the end of “Depot Dog”, there’s really only been what sounds like one verse and you’re so excited for that chorus and the subsequent second, third, fourth, and fifth verses but then the song just ends. I find myself with that same sense of abandonment that I got from a lot of MJ Lenderman’s newest album Manning Fireworks where all my favorite songs sounded like they could have benefited from a third or fourth verse.
Thankfully, the next song “Full” makes up for the missing minutes of “Depot Dog” with a folk rocker that goes the distance but without overstaying its welcome. “Drive & Drive” all the way through “Full” is my favorite run of songs on the record and “Full” really ends that run with the bang to end all bangs. This song features the best lead guitar work on the album with a hefty sense of melody and purpose. Carolina’s vocal performance is expressive, emotional, and reserved but with this fire-cracker spark that sounds like they can go off the rails at any moment. Carolina has this wonderful vocal idiosyncrasy where it sounds like they’re sarcastically talking to you with such a rich attitude that it makes intently listening to their vocals and lyrics amusing as well as enriching.
As we enter the back half of the record, I do want to point out that although I love this second batch of songs, the album is a bit front-heavy with most of the songs that I’m always dying to go back to being within the first half. That’s not to say there aren’t insane highlights on the back half. Songs like “Deja vu”, “Lake Martin”, and “Sky Baby” shimmer with the naturalistic magic that Adrianne Lenker had on their project songs back in 2020. They all gleam and glimmer with this natural wonder of the world and all the lovely things in it while hypnotizing you with entrancing acoustic progressions that repeat themselves in ways that conjure up feelings of warmth and familiarity rather than annoyance over the lack of new melodies.
“Hazards” brings a surprisingly heavy and crushing twist to the sound of 444 as Carolina builds tension singing about a few real-life experiences each of which are packed with a hefty amount of annoyance while distorted guitars and doom-ridden drums layer the soundscape underneath. What’s really fun about this song are all the peaceful and serene musical passages that ardently juxtapose the distortion so well that it sounds like a musical metaphor for the ups and downs of everyday life. “Hazards” has by far the best outro of any song on the album where, for almost a whole minute, we see the band making peace with the fact that petty grievances are a part of everyday life and there’s not much else you can do about besides write some great tranquil folk songs to past the time.
The album ends as wonderfully as it began with “Thank you card to band”, a love letter Carolina surely wrote to all those who move mountains and build bridges to aid in their quest to sing their songs to all those fortunate enough to listen. If “Sky Baby” is the prettiest song on the record then “Thank you card to band” is by far the sweetest and begs the question of why we don’t hear more band love songs. Nothing pleases me more than learning the members of my favorite bands actually love each other and aren’t just there for a job and have to put up with each other to make it work; hearing these sentiments goes a long way toward cementing my love for an artist and their songs and even inspires me to pick up my guitar and write myself. I can’t think of a better way to end an album and really nothing gets me more excited to revisit an album when I know it starts and ends beautifully.
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a better indie folk album that came out this year than 444. It’s utterly fantastic and a strong 9 out of 10 for me. If you love artists and bands like Squirrel Flower, Merce Lemon, Big Thief, Lucinda Williams, Adrianne Lenker, or even Katy Kirby, you’ll find much to love about 444 and Hemlock. There’s not much I didn’t love about this album besides the fact that I wish it was longer. It can be maddening sometimes when you come across a song you love so much that you want to last 10 minutes but it’s only got about one minute of gas in the tank. So, what is a Hemlock-loving boy to do? Well, that’s why someone (likely named God) invented the replay button, I suppose. I’ll keep hitting replay and anxiously awaiting Hemlock’s album release show at Constellation on December 12th and I hope to see you there. You who is anonymously reading this two-month late album review of a local Chicago folk artist that not many people could ever hope to hear of. Yeah, I’m talking to you!
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