Blue Raspberry

Blue Raspberry is Kirby’s most pointed, honest, and resonant self. There’s heaviness everywhere, and it should be excavated in doses. Still, her voice remains in bloom, providing a levity that yet again makes a Katy Kirby listening experience a comforting one.

Blue Raspberry sees some extremely slight but thoughtful experimentation from Kirby. A playfulness that, on the one hand, gives greater depth to Kirby's music—or otherwise make that depth more obvious to the shallow listener—but also, on the other, reemphasises to you—to me—just how good, how delicate, how thoughtful a songwriter Kirby really is at her core.

The resulting songs easily clear the bar for earnest expressions of affection, going into awkward, getting-to-know-you encounters, breakups, fears, and those small, secret moments when one's love grows stronger.

Lurching guitar, chiming piano and stabs of overdubbed choral harmony are combined with vocals that swing from sweetly intimate to dry and flippant. [Mar 2024, p.89]

Kirby's second is more cosmopolitan than 2021 Cool Dry Place, with bandmates Alberto Sewald's and Logan Chung's muted soft rock production shifting her halfway toward Weyes Blood's polished indie folk. [Jan 2024, p.31]

There’s a delicacy to the way Kirby’s voice interplays with these vulnerable arrangements, especially on guitar ballads like the earnest “Party of the Century” (which Kirby co-wrote over FaceTime with ANTI- labelmate Christian Lee Hutson).

Potently precise and exceedingly witty, Kirby’s lyrical prowess is written all over Blue Raspberry, showcasing its sheer range from the earnest theatrics of "Drop Dead" to the quiet craving on "Wait Listen".

Her second album, written in Nashville, continues to make up for lost time, moving on in both craft and playfulness.

Blue Raspberry proves that Kirby is particularly dialed in on these vicissitudes of intimacy. With a little fine-tuning, she could transcend.

One of Kirby’s key strengths is her lyrics, but even with her voice front and foremost her repeated appeal to “wait, wait, wait, listen” seems like it could be genuine. On the other hand, the fact that a first spin inspires a kind of relaxed inattention just makes ‘Blue Raspberry’ more of a slow burn, one which rewards listeners who come back for more.

In spite of its pondering otherwise, Blue Raspberry is as real as it gets and in its most composed moments a confident step forward.