Erin Inglish pulled no poetic punches in I Will Not Obey—a protest single that rules out compliance and refuses to be complicit through silence. The honkytonk instrumentation and her hauntingly ethereal folk vocals take protest music right back to its roots while injecting swathes of feminine fire into the production. When the single reaches its chorus, an almost hypnotic tribal energy takes over the track, awakening you to how you’ve slept until you’ve woken up in this fever dream of a tyrannical system where there’s no justice or peace, unless you can pay the price of privilege.
Her razor-sharp songwriting, composed around the words of Utah Phillips, allowed this single to spring to life as far more than the sum of all its parts. It’s almost enough to inspire you to join a Wicker Man-style cult and collectively take down the government.
With arrangement support from Adam Nash and Sean Alexander Collins, and banjo lines that bleed defiance into the architecture of the single, Inglish channels her craft into a folk-rooted statement piece that is far from sentimental nostalgia. Her artistry, sharpened across three solo albums, five collaborative records, and a globe-spanning performance history, culminates in this moment of rebellion wrapped in timeless musicality.
As a banjo-wielding songwriter and activist based on California’s Central Coast, Inglish has always pushed her voice beyond performance—I Will Not Obey ensures that her voice echoes where it’s needed most.
I Will Not Obey is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Bandcamp.
Review by Amelia Vandergast.