There aren’t many music scenes in the world that are as competitive as the one in Texas. The lone star state is a confluence of mainstream and independent artists, and for a country singer/songwriter by the name of Kaitlyn Kohler, it’s a place she calls home. Kohler’s music is as surreal as it is sharply emotional, and in the new single “Everywhere I Go,” she uses her fusion style of play to make it known just how heavy a contender in the Nashville scene she’s looking to become in 2023 and beyond. Her compositional wit is impressive, but perhaps not as much as her actual performance in this song is.
URL: https://kaitlynkohler.com/
First off, there’s nothing plasticized in this master mix, and I would even say that the milder guitar parts in “Everywhere I Go” have a rustic element to their melodicism that gives the track a slight folkiness that would make the music accessible to hipsters as well as traditional country fans. As was the case in her early singles, which were released beginning in 2019, Kohler is in the eye of the storm directing the harmonies like a conductor would lead an orchestra, but her role never swallows up that of her backing band for a second.
I love the soulfulness in the lead vocal here, and in the chorus, it reaches such a strong fever pitch that I ended up rewinding the song a couple of times just to experience that release in my first sit down with “Everywhere I Go” just this week. There’s an urban country influence in this artist’s style that I’d like to hear her expand upon the next time she hits the studio to work on developing new music, and it might even be a good idea to consider covering something from the soul genre just to demonstrate her credibility to potential naysayers.
“Everywhere I Go” features Kohler using a balladic approach to her lyrical emissions, but this framework itself has a lot more in common with the larger-than-life country of arena concerts than it does anything you’d hear in a smoky nightclub. Don’t let the soft, approachable cosmetics of the finish deceive you – beneath the surface, this single is boasting a lot more muscle than it initially lets on, which, along with the amplified synth, is part of the reason why the chorus feels so much weightier than the verses leading up to it.
It’s clear that Kaitlyn Kohler still has a long way to go if she’s going to sell some of the more conservative establishment types on her sound, but for indie buffs like me, hers is the kind of music that we need to be hearing a lot more of in 2023. “Everywhere I Go,” alongside “Break Another Heart” and “Everything’s Here but You,” is an amazing start to what could easily become a highly lucrative and critically successful career for Kaitlyn Kohler if she sticks with the discipline she exhibits in this song, and I can’t wait to hear what she records next.
Heather Savage
