CAYLEE HAMMACK

                                                              "That Dog" 

                                                               Capitol Records Nashville

Caylee Hammack is no stranger to country music fans. Her incredible resume already includes high impact at country radio with “Family Tree,” Chris Stapleton, Reba McEntire, and Tenille Townes featured on her songs, an ACM nomination for New Female Artist of the Year in 2020, and high accolades for her debut album If It Wasn’t For You.

But never one to rest on what’s already been accomplished, it’s safe to say that this past year has been a stellar breakout for Hammack. Several collaborations with Ashley McBryde on her Lindeville album put her name in songwriting spotlight, while the tease of a sophomore album, backed by “All or Nothing” and “History of Repeating,” only continued to heighten her deafening buzz.

She now returns with a third teaser of new material, “That Dog.”

Co-written by Hammack, Jake Mitchell and Aaron Raitiere, the song leans into an insatiable groove through its intro that immediately get your hips slow swaying in rhythm as Caylee drops in her unmistakable voice, daring you to compare it to Reba in its familiarity while standing within its own unique traits to make it 100% her own. 

Pushing into the opening verse, she leads the listener to believe that a recent breakup is crushing her heart with lines such as “I've never quite missed something this way” and “drove away crying,” before cleverly flipping the script into the chorus to sing of what she’s really missing most as the title suggests.

“All I really miss is that dog

I can't sleep at night

I bet you're drunk and he's all alone

Did you even leave on the light

You knew what you were doing

You knew how to cut me deep

'Cause baby, we both know

That dog loved me”

Where most songs will naturally lift the chorus, Hammack intriguingly drops into this one with a deeper drawl that initially slows the pace to allow her voice to carry the truth of the lyric, as the second verse then sees her adding a toe tapping element to the groove to keep you moving along while she ponders if the dog is missing her half as much as she’s been missing him.

Caylee Hammack is one of those rare songwriters who walks her own line into her artist trajectory, sounding familiar enough to what we’re accustomed to so that we’re drawn in, while adding slight idiosyncrasies that dare to be different than the norm. She accomplishes that once again with “That Dog,” especially within the stray from the formula of the instrumentation, craftily making this the third song in a row from her to amp anticipation for what’s still to come when her album officially drops later this year.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis) 

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