If there are eyes that glisten as though they’ve lived a thousand years, Patricia Murphy’s voice is the sonic equivalent. In Cut You Down, the standout single from Whiskey Hill’s debut LP Paloma, her vocal presence embodies the weight of experience. Alongside guitarist and backing vocalist Jonathan Tucker, Murphy visualises a sound that transcends epochs and style. The chanteuse of Americana Folk keeps her arrangements roots-deep and the air that she weaves through her sound weightless, resulting in a panoramic score that sweeps you up within its accordance.
Lyrically, Cut You Down delivers sheer vindication, which arrives through the sanctity within the moment you realise that someone you thought you couldn’t live without is someone who never deserved you, and it’s unlikely that they will ever replicate the beauty within that connection. This isn’t bitterness. It’s release. It’s wisdom echoing from the mouth of someone who no longer needs to look back.
Whiskey Hill, the Kansas City duo, channel the melancholy of joy and sorrow into compositions you feel in your bones. Their arrangements bleed the soil of the Midwest, their storytelling bends around grief, love, and lives still in motion. Through violin, mandolin, and guitar, they don’t imitate. They reveal. Their sound may sit beside folk icons, but Cut You Down affirms they are writing from their own carved-out corner.
Cut You Down is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.
Review by Amelia Vandergast
