MACKENZIE CARPENTER - Dozen Red Flags - The Valory Music Co.

Using a series of releases in 2024 that aimed to showcase the range of who she is as an artist and songwriter, Mackenzie Carpenter confidently displayed why she is one of the brightest risers on the country music circuit today, balancing the edgier “Sound of a Heartbreak” against the vulnerability of “Only Girl” and the flirtatious, throwback aura of “Boots On.”

Kicking off the new year with not only another look at her anticipated next chapter, the starlet delivers her latest offering, “Dozen Red Flags" on the day she announces the release of her debut album Hey Country Queen (due out March 7, 2025).

Holding the sultriness of the underlying guitar lick in the pockets of sass radiating the slides of her voice, Carpenter trails a lyric that not only examines the obvious red flags he glowed from the start, but also maturely faces the mirror of her own inner frustrations in allowing herself to blindly think that it can’t really be that bad.

Running a checklist of his red flags through the opening verse, she tallies that he still talks to his ex, flirts with all her friends, doesn’t like her dog, and cheers for the Tennessee Vols (a mortal sin for the GA Bulldog fan that she is).

Binding her boiling over annoyance with the fact that he didn’t deliver on the promise of what should have been, the chorus lifts an instrumental strike that masterfully captures the scorned attitude that laces the lyrics.

“Man, he was cute and damn he was funny

And my brother thought he was the man

If violets are blue, then I’m such a dummy

To think he’d have roses in hand

I would’ve settled for tulips or daises

I ain’t picking petals cause all that he gave me

Were reasons for runnin’

And a couple dozen red flags”

Loosely touching on the hurt marks that he impressed on her in the second verse, the bridge intriguingly then brings us into our role as the trusted peer she’s leaning on as the mood shifts with her literally speaking through a vent-filled rant that details the final nail in the coffin of what she had hoped would come of them verses what did come of them.

Carpenter has proven her way around familiar and relatable emotions, crisply draping them in sensible melodies that command you to listen while dynamically moving her phrasing in such a way that the commonality of the feels uniquely becomes her own definitions.

With all eyes (and ears) laser focused on what’s to be expected from this next chapter, “Dozen Red Flags” unapologetically upholds the idea that while you never know exactly what you’re going to get from her, you know it’ll always be solid and worth a spin.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis/Artwork c/o The Valory Music Co.)