Photo by John Dupre
Hannah Kaminer will release her highly anticipated third studio album, Heavy on the Vine, this Friday, January 5. In the five years since her sophomore LP, Heavy Magnolias, debuted to critical acclaim, the award-winning storyteller and songstress has endured a striking personal transformation that has encompassed every aspect of her life. Today, Kaminer has shared the standout single, “Everlasting Arms.” The poignant number, which details Kaminer’s emotional departure from her faith, confronts difficult truths about the repercussions of renouncing religion and its impact on one’s sense of belonging. Listen to “Everlasting Arms,” out now on all digital streaming platforms, here.
New Single, “EVERLASTING ARMS” Out Today
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Resuming collaborations with her longtime musical confidant, GRAMMY-winning engineer Julian Dreyer, Kaminer set up shop at the esteemed Echo Mountain Recording, where her first two albums were conceived. Embracing her role as a producer for the first time, Kaminer’s blossoming confidence as both an artist and, more broadly, a human is at the centerpiece of her latest opus. Although recent turbulence in the areas of family, faith, and relationships carries the larger themes within the album, each distinct chapter is delivered with a poignant blend of acceptance, self-assurance, and optimism that brightens the overall tone. Serving as a soundtrack to Kaminer’s exploration of loss and transition, Heavy on the Vine is an effortless personification of hard-fought internal battles, existential doubt, surrender, and subsequent adaptation.
“As I wrote this album, I had been writing and thinking a lot about estrangement,” Kaminer shares. “This concept kept showing up everywhere over the last few years. Estrangement from oneself, from family and friends, from the faith I had when I was younger, and from the world as I used to know it (and perhaps from my naivete, too). A lot of uncertainty blossomed inside me during the writing of this album. One day, the pieces of my faith dropped out of the back of my head, and I couldn’t figure out how to pick them up again. And at the same time, I was regaining my voice and sense of power as a grown woman. I had to become better at living with questions and accepting the absence of answers.”
Marking a unique departure from her previous works, Kaminer reinforces her sharp songwriting with the introduction of all-new musical arrangements––enlisting the talents of fellow North Carolina cohorts Kevin Williams on piano and keys, bassist Melissa Hyman, Jackson Grimm on the banjo, fiddler Olivia Springer, steel guitarist Jackson Dulaney, and drummer Ross Montsinger. The result is a vibrant tapestry of soul-stirring compositions that engage the use of haunting reverb and playful expression in equal measure. With Kaminer at the helm of all creative direction, her bandmates––all seasoned in their own right––had leeway to chime in with thoughtful suggestions that brought each number to its most polished form.
“I wanted to create something where I had the final say on everything,” Kaminer continues. “I knew the sounds I wanted to hear. I wanted to use piano and keyboards to express heartbreak, the way Patsy Cline did on her records. I wanted ‘The Silence & the Song’ to be as sparse as possible because I wrote that one during the pandemic and wanted to honor the bare-bones feeling we all had during the spring of 2020. I wanted ‘Everlasting Arms’ to be almost hymn-like, to place the listener in a church context.”
“Everlasting Arms,” one of the emotional focal points of Heavy on the Vine, is a song inspired by Kaminer’s departure from the church; its lyrics crying, “Rock of ages, how did you become a cold and hardened face blocking out the sun?” A similar sentiment anchors “Childish Things,” which finds Kaminer boldly speaking her mind, unwilling to give up her autonomy in favor of blind obedience. Elsewhere, Heavy On The Vine delivers Motown-inspired grooves with “Irene (It’s a Big World)” (which finds its narrator struggling to woo a lover whose head is buried in a smartphone) and nods to one of Kaminer’s childhood heroes Patsy Cline, with the piano-led country song “The Has-Been.” “Heavy on the Vine,” the album’s title track, pays homage to one of Kaminer’s biggest inspirations, Kate Wolf (whose well-worn song, “Here in California,” makes a brief cameo in the lyrics), recentering the collection with the argument that, in life, only a few things are actually important.
With prominent nods to other musical heroes, including Gillian Welch, Iris DeMent, and Patty Griffin, the newest addition to Kaminer’s catalog is a modern masterpiece that blurs the boundaries between genre and generation. Through a fresh lens cemented in challenging yet wholly rewarding revelations, Kaminer is triumphant in creating a contemporary sound that’swoozy, wistful, and evocative of the landscape where it was created.
Heavy on the Vine arrives on CD, vinyl, and digital streaming platforms on Friday, January 5. To learn more about Hanna Kaminer and stay up to date on future releases, visit HannahKaminer.com.
Heavy on the Vine Track List
Asheville
Broke Down Girl
Everlasting Arms
Heavy on the Vine
Whiskey Straight
Childish Things
Irene (It’s a Big Old World)
The Silence and The Song
The Has-Been
Time’s Too Fast
Wish We Could Talk
Hannah Kaminer Tour Dates
01/04 – The Grey Eagle – Asheville, NC
01/25 – 185 King Street – Brevard, NC
01/30 – Steep Canyon Rangers WinterCamp – Brevard, NC
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