JENNA LAMASTER - Holy Smokes - Western Songbird Records

Coming off a very solid year that featured the poignant and necessary “Truth Is” and the boot heel clicked tone of “More of Them,” singer-songwriter Jenna LaMaster fused throwback traditions into a 90’s country aura to satisfy a sound that’s unapologetically, undeniably country.

With her first release of 2025, she continues to engage her growing fan base with a studio offering of a song that’s already striking the right chords during her live shows.

“Holy Smokes” is available now on all digital and streaming platforms.

Merging the heartache emotions that consume you after pushing someone away with the Biblical ideas that become the hard to fathom healing moments of your fractured brokenness, LaMaster paints visions of vices following her to a smokey corner bar in the sky, masking her heartbreak and regrets against a backdrop of whiskey, cigarettes, and an angel’s shoulder to lean on.

With down here, up there images floating the melodic flow, Jenna poetically drafts her self-torturing thoughts of never being able to get over him, solemnly lamenting how she’ll be doing the exact same things that she’s doing right now when she’s sitting at a heaven’s edge point of view.

Lacing the chorus with prominent cries of steel guitar, the instrumental sadness gently carries the soft waver of LaMaster’s vocal grafts, cohesively blending her right now truths with the tomorrow pain of still wishing she could get him back:

“I’ll be bummin’ holy smokes, still going through hell

On the wrong side of heaven, still kicking myself

Asking for a light, still saying your name

Telling some angel how we went down in flames

They say it’s a better place but that won’t change the cold hard truth

I’ll be bummin’ holy smokes, still getting over you”

Heralding a heart wrenching, though often all too relatable feeling, Jenna LaMaster embraces her brokenness and questions how (and if) she’ll ever be able to get over the fact that she pushed the right one away, tugging strongly on the frayed heartstrings of the broken-hearted while sonically pleasing a uniqueness that’s both attractive to the modern toned listener just as much as it is the crowd who seeks a little “more country in my country.”

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)