Songwriter Gretchen Peters is a go-to for artists seeking material whose lyric depth matches its hooks. She continually goes into the marrow, revealing the secrets that result in a song’s defining decisions and cathartic actions. This is especially true on her own recordings. Blackbirds takes these to an entirely new level, one shared with peers like Mickey Newbury’s It Looks Like Rain and Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. Blackbirds is a profound, poetic, career-defining album from a singer and songwriter of the highest order.

-Thom Jurek

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