Ashley Cooke is prolific. This is her fourth release in four and a half years, and it comes hot on the heels of last year’s “Ace”. Like that record, “Ashley Cooke” is incredibly honest. Cooke had a hand in writing all 15 songs, and they feel less like compositions than pages pulled straight from her diary.
“if i’m being honest” makes that plain immediately. Acoustic and sparse, it is her truth laid bare, with Cooke clearly scared of the emotional rollercoaster she’s on. “high school sweetheart” counters with bright pop and a bitter streak. She knows the split is his loss and that he deserves every word. Then again, if you break up with a singer-songwriter, what do you expect?
“baby blues” is sweet pop music dripping with lust and fun, while “famous to frances” considers a love that needs therapy – and perhaps the song itself is the session. These tracks sound intensely confessional, but they’re dressed in music so polished and natural that the craft never smothers the emotion. “johnny ’n june” is perhaps the clearest example.
Then “excuses” appears from nowhere, built for the point when the gigs become arenas. It is a huge song for everyone who can’t forget the one who got away. “dance around it”, by contrast, feels more claustrophobic, its metronomic beat tightening around Cooke’s vocal, before “sleepless in seattle” finds a clever and genuinely funny new way of insisting she is absolutely, definitely over someone. Which, of course, means she isn’t.
The piano-led “man behind the glass (feat. JP Saxe)” brings proper balladry, and perhaps this time she might get through to him. Saxe’s male perspective takes it somewhere deeper, turning a monologue into a fraught conversation. “i’m up and i’m down” provides the line that unlocks the whole record: “Ain’t no secret you’re my favourite weakness.” That’s the central conflict here – knowing better and wanting it anyway.
“the hell you are” apparently concerns a man who looks good but is an arsehole. I think I know the female equivalent. Its fiddle gives the record another shade, while “between the lines” tackles the inadvisability of falling for a friend, particularly one who doesn’t feel the same. You hope Cooke has better luck, although, if these songs form anything like a chronology, “xs” rather suggests she doesn’t.
“when we’re 30” wonders about settling for something, happiness viewed with one eye on the clock. Finally, “the girl who cried wolf” offers one last act of bravery. Fittingly, it’s probably the most overtly country song here, stripping everything back to the storytelling at the heart of Cooke’s work.
I’ve always thought that if an artist gives an album their own name when it isn’t their debut, it’s because they want it to stand as a statement: this is who I am. For all the uncertainty, fear, lust, wit and bruised confidence running through it, Ashley Cooke has done exactly that with “Ashley Cooke”.
Rating: 8/10
