Emanating from the low hills of western Kentucky (Murray, KY) are the unmistakable songs of Melanie A. Davis. A performer at heart and writer by trade, her ability to craft simultaneously poignant and liberating tunes is steeped in an appreciation for the nuances of human relationships. Whether contemplating the potential of her immediate community, reflecting the global zeitgeist, or considering her own vices and tendencies, she never shies away from the glaring truths therein.

Honey Locust, Davis’ third full-length album, is set to release on August 4, 2023. The 13-track collection of jazz, folk, and doo-wop-inspired songs center around the seedy truths that hide beneath familiar tropes of American existence: patriotism (or a lack thereof), senses of belonging and self, social responsibility, and love. Honey Locust peers behind the curtain, revealing the piles of dust and petrified insects behind the glittering lights of the marquee. Like a honey locust tree, the barbed reality of these concepts is often invisible until peered at with a closer eye, a deeper skepticism.

Katie Curley, whose music New York Music Daily has described as “one of the most distinctive sounds in country,” always suspected that her desire to write songs and perform them might one day propel her out of the woods of her childhood home in Washington State (not far from where Loretta Lynn penned her first hits). She just wasn’t sure how. “Growing up in a rural area, I always wanted to live in a big city,” explains Curley. “My interest in country music came later.”

Born in Pear Blossom, CA in the Antelope Valley of the Mojave Desert, Curley has no memory of the ranch her parents rented there for $1 per month, because shortly after her arrival, they moved to the LA suburb of Pomona. There, Curley recalls, “The neighbors had a pool. We had citrus trees. And I had a collie named Sheba who would visit me every night when I would let her in by the sliding glass door of my bedroom even though I wasn’t supposed to.” Before her fourth birthday, there was another, more substantial move to Washington, where her paternal grandparents had retired to a remote piece of forested land near Puget Sound.