MAE ESTES - High And Lonesome - Big Machine Records

Whenever you tune into most any music video or music related television special, the glamorous side of the business is on full display through a laser focused look at the good timing moments when everything is lit.

These are the snapshots that provide the early inspiration to the many who choose to chase after a music dream.

But is that even the reality? What happens when you chase after it, grab hold of it, and begin to ascend the mountain as the solid ground you stand on now becomes shaky and full of fakeness, naysayers, jealousy, and a loneliness that haunts you at the end of the day when you lay your head on the pillow?

That’s the uncomplacent moment that rising star Mae Estes explores on her latest offering, “High and Lonesome,” a song she herself has described as being, “honestly, a little too honest.”

Written by Estes, Paul Sikes, and Marti Dodson, the softened pace in comparison to her last two releases, “Gettin’ Back Up To Heaven” and “What I Shoulda Done,” intriguingly grips the listener with the wavered cry of vulnerable emotions embedded in her voice as she travels through what is essentially a midnight confessional to both herself and the lonely dreamers who are burning the candle at both ends. 

Lamenting on the sacrifices that she’s made to get to where she’s at today, not regretfully so much as from a more now perspective, Estes transparently tallies in each of the verses how she’s masking her loneliness and sometimes wonders what the point to all this is, while also adding a strike to the helpless feeling when facing an addiction to the dream.

In what sings out like a desperate prayer, she lifts the chorus into a final plea that’s stubbornly washed in a full understanding of her current place while conflicted by the internal truth that she doesn’t really understand it at all:

“Lord, ain’t it fun being second to none

Don’t it feel free that close to the sun

Least that’s what I thought

Til I got all that I wanted and then some

So fly baby fly

But what good is high if you’re lonesome”

Over the three songs that have set her next chapter in motion, modern era troubadour Mae Estes has authentically given us very different looks and feels, showcasing her strong ability to walk the lines of her many different influences while blending them into one cohesive sound that creates a definitive signature that can only fit into a box marked in black Sharpie as “MAE ESTES.”

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis/Artwork c/o Big Machine Records)