The blues seem like they’re an even deeper shade of blue these days, and personal micro-tragedies seem ever-more tied to larger systemic failures—something Andrews masterfully illustrates on tracks like “Two Cold Nights in Buffalo,” where she surveys the crumbling infrastructure of the Rust Belt town and laments the “American Dream dying,” as well as the blistering “Border,” which was inspired by the tensions in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, and tells the story of a Mexican immigrant struggling to cross the Sonoran Desert and then struggling to succeed in this country. It’s relevant and powerful protest music, and Andrews contextualizes her own despair within a much bigger picture, all sung in her emotive vibrato, which can resemble the iconic voices of Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, and Loretta Lynn within the span of the same song.

CIARA DOLAN