Album Review: MacKenzie Porter, Drinkin' Songs: The Collection

Given the boatload of awards she's been nominated for and her status as the first female artist since Shania Twain to score three consecutive #1 singles at Canadian country radio, it’s not exactly earth-shattering to discover MacKenzie Porter’s Drinkin' Songs: The Collection is pretty darn great. 

It’s how great these songs are that is startling. With a voice like polished glass, but much warmer than that description suggests, Porter injects these lyrics with uncommon dynamism, no matter the mood. With its painful her-versus-me checklist, tearful ballad “The One” — chronicling the sorrow of the last girlfriend before the bride, or as Porter describes her, “the one before The One” — is made even more visceral for being so pretty. Title track “Drinkin’ Songs” revisits a couple’s song (you know, as in ‘Oh honey here’s our song’) after the spilt has become final.

Not that Porter is a perpetual sad sack. With its spoken-word bits, the buoyant “Drive Thru” sassily turns the tables on the booty call, recasting fast food jargon as a winking analogy for sex-on-demand. “Seeing Other People,” slingshots a downcast topic through a crisp, upbeat musical façade seemingly propelled by pedal steel from another, more iridescent world than our own. And did I mention the heart-stopping force of “The One?” Yowzers.

Drinkin’ Songs: The Collection was released November 6, 2020 on Big Loud Records.
Listen to it here.