Some voices stop you in your tracks. Anna Graves, the singer-songwriter from Webster, Minnesota, is blessed with one of them. On America’s Greatest Burnout, her debut LP, which arrives on the heels of her 2024 EP, Solstice, Graves’ voice leaps out of the speakers; her country-rock story songs take flight. After living and grinding in Los Angeles in Nashville, Graves moved back home in 2023—one step back, many steps forward. The return proved fertile ground to create all the music she’s released in the past two years: rootsy Americana built from honest, vulnerable lyrics and set aloft with gorgeous, crystalline melodies. In short, Anna Graves is no burnout, but she may prove that the rest of the album title is spot on.
You’ll hear echoes of other renegade women of country here; Slow Burn-era Kacey Musgraves and even flecks of Dolly Parton surface. But the strength of Graves’ songwriting make any sonic comparison feel lackadaisical—these songs need no reference.
On “Damn in Love,” Graves looks back on a relationship’s better days and wonders where it went wrong—it’s an aching and relatable, heartbreaking view. “Do you wanna start over?” she sings. “Or do you wanna burn it down? And if you do then I’ll understand, but will you hold my hand?” She strips it all down for the sparse, “Hollow Bones,” a gorgeous, shimmering folk ballad. It’s aspirational and cautiously optimistic, a wish for unburdening: “Oh, to let pain be light as a feather. Oh, to be free as a rolling stone. Oh, to be brave in the cutthroat weather.” America’s Greatest Burnout is the beginning of something wonderful—an album so lovely, hummable and engaging it feels like it’s been around forever.
