Angaleena Presley - Wrangled

The Guardian 80

(Mining Light/Thirty Tigers)

Her 2014 debut, American Middle Class, put the late-flowering Kentucky songwriter on the map – “ a 10-year overnight sensation”, as she puts it here – and this follow-up delivers more sharp-eyed social vignettes: the teen pregnancies of High School, the search for salvation on Only Blood and Motel Bible. Much of Wrangled, though, is a caustic commentary on Presley’s path through a chauvinist music industry, especially on Country, a feminist tirade against the inanities of “bro country”, and Dreams Don’t Come True, a waltz-time “price of fame” lament. Musically, Presley likes to jump around – there’s tough rockabilly on Good Girl Down and tender acoustica on Cheer Up Little Darling, a co-write with the late Guy Clark. A voice for the times.