Grace Potter makes bold, gritty promises, but Mother Road is too polished to deliver

Her work, both as a solo artist and with her band Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, has spanned country, psychedelia, soul, and rock – all framed through her brazen charisma as a singer and songwriter. Mother Road, her latest release, utilises her wisdom and multi-genre prowess to illustrate her sepia-tinged reflections on what it means to be an American woman.

The record kicks off with a drawling guitar lick, immediately showing off its reverence for the smokey warmth of vintage Americana. Just like Potter’s back catalogue, the album is unafraid to take up space, emanating the swaggering energy of vintage soul and funk just as much as the country stylings of its core. Potter shines best on "Truck Stop Angels," where layers of chugging rhythms, soulful organ, and powerful backing vocals build to a scorching climax that recalls Exile on Main Street-era Stones. Her lyrics also reclaim the patriarchal ideals of traditional country music for the female gaze; in "Lady Vagabond" she sings, "Now if you look a little closer / At the lines upon my face / You'll see every road I drove / And every dream I ever chased," paying tribute to the feminine strength that is so often marginalised within rural America.

But nonetheless, there is something about Mother Road that feels 'off' – and it’s that it plays it far too safe. Whilst the album’s musicality is impressive, the tracks are almost all structured a little too strictly, and its production is so uniformly polished that it’s hard to tell some songs apart. These choices create a detachedness that prevents Potter from fully embracing the gritty stories she tries to tell. Potter’s vocals, which curiously veer into annoying 'indie voice' territory, also feel like they lack authentic feeling – an affectation that feels all the more frustrating when her previous work shows just how powerful her true voice is. "Little Hitchhiker," the album’s weakest track, illustrates how these choices let Potter down. A more vulnerable approach could have transformed the song into a heartrending ode to female freedom in the face of misogyny – but its perfect production and her vocal stylings make it a predictable, boring, country-pop tune.

Mother Road, in many ways, is an impressive album that hints at Grace Potter’s immense potential and talent as a musician. But whilst its bold, soulful energy is interesting at first, its polished sheen deadens the impact of the narratives it tries to tell, ultimately rendering it as just another forgettable country-rock record.