TENILLE TOWNES - As You Are - Columbia Nashville

Since breaking onto the country music scene with 2018’s “Somebody’s Daughter,” Tenille Townes has become one of Canada’s most decorated superstars while finding her footing stateside through high impacting songs such as “Girl Who Didn’t Care.”

On the back of her very well-received Train Track Worktapes, and her recent collaboration with Bryan Adams, “The Thing That Wrecks You,” Townes now returns with the very vulnerable “As You Are.”

The namesake of her current tour, the song written by Townes, Maggie Chapman, and David Pramik opens internal dialog toward the walls we build around our hearts.

The simple strum of acoustic guitar allows the whisper of her vocal to expertly grip each word as she faces the mirror, her truths, admitting to herself the pieces of her past that led to her walls being built today; “You’re haunted by the echoes of all the pain from your past, with every love that didn’t last,” “You can trace it back to when you were a kid,” etc.

The cry-like interpretation of trying to free herself from her past echoes through the chorus as she moves her voice through its complex layers, removing her walls ever so gently, brick by brick before arriving at a crescendo moment that masterfully sees the instrumentation match her lifted tone of emotions through the bridge where she crashes her walls with redemption and the full acceptance of herself and who she is:

“I’ll take you as you are

Of all the pain from your past

With every love that didn’t last

Every time we get this close, I feel you pulling back

Every twist and every turn

I’m a bridge you’ll never burn

I’m not gonna run, even when it hurts”

“As You Are” is an ultra-personal roller coaster ride of emotions that plays out like a diary page of Townes’ past tribulations meeting her current day self to guide the next chapter of her future, however, buried within the depths of honesty that lace each phrase turn sits a song that leaps through the speakers to resonate with so many people who have guarded their heart.

We’ve all had our heart broken. It’s an unexplainable pain that carries a heavy weight and causes us to self-examine how we could have done things differently while becoming master bricklayers in the process of shutting out the world while locking ourselves inside of our own hurt.

Tenille Townes transparently shares her own story as a trusted friend, providing us with a guiding light of encouragement that lets us know it’ll be alright to take the walls down and unashamedly experience the rewards that arrive through the risks.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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