RACHEL MCINTYRE SMITH

                                                               "The Woulds" 

                                                                Independent Release

East Tennessee’s Rachel McIntyre Smith has been carving out her unique niche since she first hit the scene with a vintage style that recalled the boogie woogie era of the 1940’s, while smartly fusing in all the right touches to modernize her overall feel as her vocals stood at the centerpiece of each song and wowed the listener.

With a few glimpses already released that gave us some insight into her forthcoming EP, including its title track “Glory Daze” and the tongue and cheek “Miss Highfalutin,” Smith maintained that retro flare, but has also introduced a bit more of an Americana sound into her arsenal to intriguingly take another step ahead on her musical journey.

She now returns with a third look at the forthcoming EP with the release of “The Woulds.”

The mostly acoustic led instrumentation sits in the pocket of a folksy tempo as her vocals steer the vibe while she puts on a display of amazingly crafty songwriting that cleverly uses imagery of “the woods” throughout each of the verses, singing lines such as:

“Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.”

“Questions coming down like falling leaves.”

“No black and white, just walls of green.”

However, it’s in both the chorus and the bridge that we get the deeply seeded “what if” emotions and experience the true depth of this lyric. Rachel perfectly taps into the anxious overthinking that naturally enters our thought process in the aftermath of a breakup as she starts to wonder out loud of all the different things that it “would” have been if she hadn’t run away, asking questions:

“Would I be your bride if I hadn’t run?”

“Would you like the person that I’m becoming?”

“Would we start fresh if I just gave you a call?”

“Would you be able to trust me?”

“Would we finally see eye to eye?”

But like so many of us do, Smith may be wondering all these things and constantly thinking about them, but she never actually takes the leap to put her heart on the line and find out the answers, which results in the incredible, play on words hook, “So I live in The Woulds.”

Though this is certainly Rachel McIntyre Smith delving much deeper into her Americana influenced side, it’s also a bold showcase of the transparency that she’s willing to show on this new batch of music as the confusion of growing up and experiencing life sets in as she enticingly wears her heart on her sleeve.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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