video review: 'heartbreaker of the year' by whitney rose

Man, I wish I could have gotten this album review out earlier, but this weekend was just... yeah, not productive at all.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!

album review: 'heartbreaker of the year' by whitney rose

So when I did my Special Comment highlighting some gems on the Canadian Hot 100, I got a few comments saying that, 'Well, you were cherry-picking - there is obviously quality here but you easily could have highlighted bad Canadian music and chose not to'. And I have a confession: as much as I'm a proud supporter of Canadian music and even Canadian country, we got our duds out here. We even have our version of bro-country out here, mostly pushed by Dallas Smith, formerly the frontman of post-grunge group Default and now has been working with Joey Moi on trying - and mostly failing - to be a cross between Florida Georgia Line and Jake Owen.

But we're not going to be talking about bad mainstream Canadian country, but instead diving back into the indie scene, so let's talk about Whitney Rose. Originally from Prince Edward Island on the East Coast, she dropped her self-titled debut album in 2012 - and it might have just been rough timing, because another Canadian vintage-leaning country singer-songwriter also dropped a pretty potent album in 2012, and that was Lindi Ortega's excellent Cigarettes & Truckstops, easily her best work thus far. And it's not hard to make that comparison: both artists brought a certain sultriness, taste for traditional country blended with vintage pop flavours, and gorgeous atmosphere to the table, and Whitney Rose's album definitely was of high calibre. But while I'd definitely argue her writing was a huge plus, her instrumental tones and styles were a little too polished, at least for me: very elegant and potent, but occasionally lacking an edge.

That looked like it might have changed on her sophomore release, Heartbreaker Of The Year, so I gave it a listen: what did I find?