Sierra Ferrell Trail of Flowers LP

Rolling Stone 100 Best Albums of 2024 - Rated 60/100!

One of the brightest young luminaries in roots music today, Sierra Ferrell brings a dose of beautifully strange magic to everything she touches.

On her 2024 album Trail of Flowers, brought to life with producer Eddie Spear (Zach Bryan, Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton) and additional production by Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss, Dwight Yoakam, Gillian Welch), she expands her sound while deepening the urgency of her songs, often revealing a wealth of wisdom within her wildly imaginative storytelling.

Like some sort of woodland creature captured in a folk story that's more myth and legend than physical manifestation, Sierra Ferrell dazzles the mind and imagination, arrests you in a spell of charisma, and steals your attention until nothing else enters your thoughts except the marvelous noise she makes so you can attain full immersion under her spell. Push forward Sierra Ferrell's new song 'Fox Hunt' as corroborating evidence of this captivating phenomenon. Sierra Ferrell is not of this world, and neither is 'Fox Hunt.'

The fiddle takes centre-stage for much of 'Fox Hunt', with the live-wire performance bringing additional energy whenever it re-enters the composition. Towards the end of the song, the fiddle is given space to shine, with the heightened intensity and tempo of the instrumentation seemingly representing the hunt coming to its dramatic conclusion. With the fiddle having had its moment, Sierra Ferrell returns to deliver the final two lines a capella, with her distinctive, sinuous voice leaving the listener heading straight for the 'Replay' button.

Ferrell is redefining the sound of country music by connecting modern-day listeners to the roots of folk sound.

...a freewheeling collection of country and folk, rooted in the past and winking at the future while being focused on the moment at hand....Trail of Flowers benefits from her light and curious touch: it seems as if she's stumbling upon these traditional sounds for the first time, discovering new ways to tell old tales.