Slowly yet surely sharpening her skillset, Sierra Ferrell has shown more quality in spades. ‘Trail of Flowers’ serves as Sierra Ferrell’s most refined album thus far, with enough highlights in compositions, production, performances, and songwriting that only deepen the strident growth that Sierra Ferrell has embraced.
Each passing project that Sierra Ferrell has put out is a continuous state of refinement. Starting off in 2014, Sierra Ferrell has been slowly pushing out records within the neo-traditional country spaces that offered enough to highlight, especially from her vocals, melodies, and writing that show a glimmer of striking quality that’s waiting to leap out. Indeed, with ‘Long Time Coming’, it does manage to push forward the country tinges that Sierra Ferrell has stepped within as a lot of her vocals, compositions, and writing only lands more character - a sense of progress that eventually lands towards ‘Trail Of Flowers’, her recent album as of this year.
Throughout ‘Trail of Flowers’, there is a lot of distinctive flair that puts Sierra Ferrell as a magnetic presence in terms of being a vocalist and songwriter. But it’s not just that, as she does manage to push further into other country subgenres that are paired with striking production touches that allow the melodies to charm everyone in the room, leaving a lot of highlights within this trail of songs. The sifting grace of ‘American Dreaming’ with the layer of acoustics before eventually stepping into the brilliant hook, the shuffling strumming and harmonica swivels on ‘Dollar Bill Bar’ that picks more spark every time it goes to the chorus line, the stomping set of fiddles, banjos, and vocals of ‘Fox Hunt’ that really ramps up the song’s fantastic melodic throughlines, the aching strings that pop up on the tender guitars of ‘Wish You Well’, the robust layers of instrumentation of ‘Money Train’ that’s elevated further with some wondrous vocal harmonies, the immediately inviting tune of ‘I Could Drive You Crazy’ through the harmonies and fiddles that tugs really well with the melodies, and the relaxingly head bobbing ‘Lighthouse’ with the notes of guitars and backing vocals that allow the hook to sound so sweet within its tone.
The writing that Sierra Ferrell pulls together is also worth highlighting as well. Exploring the field of yearning love tapestries that Sierra Ferrell has also touched upon before, but does manage to have enough detail to give them enough resonance. Whether that be writing about the lonesome longing of ‘American Dreaming’, the peaceful reflection of a breakup on ‘Wish You Well’, the observation of a love that’s not working on ‘Money Train’, the delightful longing on cuts like ‘Lighthouse’, ‘Dollar Bill Bar’, and ‘I Could Drive You Crazy’, or even painting a refreshing writing scene on a song like ‘Fox Hunt’ where there is a lot more theatricality that Sierra Ferrell captures really nicely.
This then leads to what weak points the record does possess, which is more on the fact that parts of the writing and the melodies are just a shade away from giving it their all, given that certain songs just pale over from the rest in terms of their composition or lyricism. Doesn’t exactly help that songs such as ‘Rosemary’ and ‘I’ll Come Off The Mountain’ - old songs from Sierra Ferrell’s 2010s albums that are now refined and nestled in this record - should’ve given a bit more shift in their poetry and instrumentation, especially as Sierra Ferrell has improved upon her melodic and writing quality in recent times.
But to end things off, ‘Trail Of Flowers’ is very much the refined record that Sierra Ferrell has put out to date, where the overall set of writing, performances, and compositions are filled to the gills with their own specific detail that does show her continuing to find more impressive layers of quality that she’ll be able to expand upon later down the line. Might be a refinement of what Sierra Ferrell has been doing for the last decade, but it is a refinement that does lead to a better resonance. With this array of brightly blooming flowers, they all create a trail that leads to a much more splendid place.
Favorite Tracks: ‘American Dreaming’, ‘Dollar Bill Bar’, ‘Fox Hunt’, ‘Wish You Well’, ‘Money Train’, ‘I Could Drive You Crazy’, ‘Lighthouse’
Least Favorite Track: ‘I’ll Come Off The Mountain’