REVIEW: Samantha Crain—Gumshoe (2025)
Will her 7th full length LP be the one to finally break this hugely talented artist?
It’s always weird to hear a truly great song by an artist you assume is new on the scene, only to discover they have an extensive back catalogue. During the darkest days of the pandemic, the artist was Samantha Crain, and the song was Bloomsday, a beautifully affecting track that ought to have been a global hit in a just world.
But not only did I never once hear it on a radio station—or anywhere else for that matter—it was only possible to buy it on the very limited 10” vinyl EP I Guess We Live Here Now via the artist’s Bandcamp. It wasn’t even released on an album fer gawd’s sake. But tracking back through Samantha Crain’s work, I was astonished to see she’d been actively releasing music since about 2007, and had seven previous albums. Sometimes, the UK and Europe really do exist in our own little musical bubble to ignore someone as talented as this.
Maybe things will change with album No.8 (7th ‘full length’ technically), her first since 2020’s A Small Death. Released on the same Real Kind Records label as that excellent 2021 EP, I managed to order this one right here in the UK without having to go through the usual hoops—maybe you will too!
Picking up where her recent records left off, Gumshoe is full of the kind of instant earworms that would be massive hits for more hyped singer songwriters. Case in point, the cool-as-Kim Deal krautrocky single, Dragonfly (originally put out in September last year). It’s far from her usual style, with its detached vocal delivery, single note keyboard stab and motorik beat driving it on, but she smooshes all those influences into one of her best-ever tracks. No wonder it’s the opener. It’s so good. 5.3k YouTube subscribers. 116k monthly Spotify listeners. Wake up everyone!
Crain’s more typical singer-songwriter style resumes after that, with an entirely contrasting balladeering delivery on Neptune Baby, and the kind of hooky single in Dart that critical darling Phoebe Bridgers would murder for. The hits keep on coming with another earworm Ridin’ Out The Storm. Four songs in, and it’s already a supremely convincing, assured record from a songwriter at the peak of her powers.
Other highlights on the record aren’t hard to find. My favourites being Trapdoor and the classy album closer Old Hallicrafter Radio, but there are plenty of gems here to pick through.
I can’t help but notice Samantha Crain is touring at the moment, but such is her limited following here, is only nipping around three UK cities: my old stomping ground at the Green Door Store in Brighton, as well as London and Manchester. No love for Scotland!
Mind you, I do wonder at the economics of little known USA artists coming all this way to play for 40 people. But it can be done! Last year, the similarly overlooked, similarly around for ages Ora Cogan played the wee Glad Cafe here in Glasgow, and then did Stereo less than a year later. I do feel Samantha Crain would be massively appreciated over on these shores, but it’s chicken and egg. If they don’t come, they can’t build a following…
