GRACE LEER - Wine and Whiskey - 19 Entertainment

Having found tremendous viral success in the second half of last year with an incredible cover of Toby Keith’s “How Do You Like Me Now?,” Grace Leer has otherwise been very strategic about the movement of her career since releasing her debut album in 2022, diligently using the softness of “My Mind’s Made Up” and “Best Friend For Life” to draft the first pages of her anticipated next chapter.

She now continues to write the story of things still to come with her first release of 2025, “Wine and Whiskey.”

Written by Leer, Ben Caver, Jason Saenz, and Sara Haze, the melodic guide masks an instrumental simplicity that allows Grace to smoothly move the complicated emotions of the lyrics through their paces, questioning from the next day’s perspective her inability to resist him, wallowing in regret after having blurred the lines and the fully known consequences.

“Feeling kinda stupid,” she laments on the songs opening line, travelling then through layers of guilt in each of the verses that see her facing the proverbial mirror of remorse while poetically outlining innocence around the justifying lies that they’ve told themselves to temporarily make it be okay.  

Leer glides past the red flags with a punch of exhilaration through the rhythmic shifts of the chorus that expertly mimics her fluttering heartbeat, fading the lustfulness that feels right in the heat of the moment against knowing it will only burn deep down inside in the aftermath like every other time she’s given in, comparatively to an unbalanced mix of wine and whiskey.  

“Cause you burn all the way down

And I leave a pretty taste in your mouth

So good that it makes you miss me

No cut straight 50/50

Hell of a hangover’s gonna hit me

Mixing wine and whiskey”

Grace Leer has always carried a unique, standout quality in knowing exactly how to let the soulful tinges of her outstanding voice trial all the right emotions so that they hit the listener right in the feels as she  tightly holds a heartstring connection that pulls them deeper into the story she’s weaving.

In the case of “Wine and Whiskey,” the overtone is one that’s washed in regret while its underlaying depth holds to the heartbroken truthfulness of not a lesson learned but rather the anxious inner turmoil of knowing that she’ll allow it to happen again. 

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)