CHLOE COLLINS - Pottery - Collins House Music
Though it’s been since “20 Nothing” that we last heard from singer-songwriter Chloe Collins, her latest offering, “Pottery,” continues to see her transparently blending her diary into song, navigating the varied emotions that naturally arrive during the growing up, 20-something years.
Written by Collins, Sara Bares, and Hannah Diones, she leans the tilts of her voice into exploring the many facets of love from the heartbroken perspective, poetically drawing comparatives between allowing your heart to fall with the fragileness of handmade pottery while knowing the risk of playing the game of love is akin to the odds of trying to win the lottery.
There’s an innocence to her voice that encapsulates the tremendous depth of the lyrics as she travels the emotional aftermath of her love worn lessons learned, while also maturely admitting from a hindsight perspective that they knew better then to even take the gamble on each other that they did.
“We knew that this was fragile
And we blew it all on a gamble
We handmade love on the kitchen table
Then robbed ourselves of something stable
Tried cheating what we can’t control
This isn’t what I thought this was gonna be
Cause love is like, love is like…”
As Collins so often does with her music, the simplicity of the guitar strum and backing drum beat challenges any predictable genre outlines, never fully committing to one or the other but eloquently flowing a unique unit that captures the signature qualities of her modern country flare, pop leaned sensibilities, and moody alternative rock splices, fitting only then the distinctive box of who she is as a singer-songwriter while upholding the essence of the lyrics.
Walking the line of love’s fragileness and risk against a melodic progression that guides the tones of her vocal prowess, the ebbs and flows expertly tap the emotional bends as she begins to reach a clearer understanding of love and heartbreak.
Though we do see her rebuilding the walls guarding her heart that she momentarily let down, she perhaps isn’t using quite as many bricks in her rebuild which gives off an optimistic hope that she’s not giving up on love altogether but rather carefully moving into her next try at it with a notebook full of the new lessons learned.
Through its lyrical honesty, Collins cleverly pours out the pieces of her fractured heart in such a crafty way that “Pottery” ends up intriguingly holding a feel more as if she’s taking on the role of a trusted friend towards listening to your own heartbreak, simply offering you her comforting words of been there to wisdom.
(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)