New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Nashville's "Americana Queen" (Noisey) Mary Bragg released today a video for her song "Fight" off her critically acclaimed new album Violets as Camouflage. It debuted on Wide Open Country who stated "'Fight,' one of the many standout moments on the album, explores the importance of showing vulnerability in a relationship."
"Sometimes a particular narrative we've convinced ourselves to believe is all in our heads," Mary told Wide Open Country. "You could definitively make up your mind about a person based on some reality that isn't actually real. And of course- sometimes it's 100% accurate and you know it's time to move on with your life. Either way, it's never really black and white, is it? The song Robby
Hecht and I wrote aims at that heart-sick feeling when your mind is telling you one thing and your heart is telling you another. The video includes footage from my actual wedding ten years ago; the present-day couple forces themselves to sit down and acknowledge what they might be walking away from if they don't fight."
Her most vulnerable, honest, and powerful album yet, Violets as Camouflage is the follow-up to 2017's critically acclaimed Lucky Strike. Hailed as a "sublime distilling of Southern grit" and one of the year's best by NPR Music, Bragg dipped her toes into a kind of radical honesty that she had only hinted at before, and it connected with audiences in profound and deeply personal ways. A Georgia native who grew up "where it's not super common to come right out and say what you feel or talk openly about your intimate emotional experiences," it was the first time she started to fully understand the importance of directly addressing really personal issues and hardship through song. It emboldened Mary to trust her gut in a whole new way on Violets as Camouflage where she reaches deeper than ever before, bares her soul, and opens herself up to the possibility of complete and total heartbreak in order to forge a strong and lasting connection.
Self-produced and self-engineered at her home studio, the fourteen-song collection is both beautiful and blunt, the work of an artist only just beginning to embrace the full range of her talents. The album's lead track "I Thought You Were Somebody Else" is a languid, seductive tune that feels both classic and modern at once. It's an ideal entry point for a record all about the stories in our heads, the little voices that delude us into hearing what we want to hear or weigh us down with self-doubt and insecurity. The Boot called it "A sorrowful, sparse song...lyrics floating along with a light drum beat, mournful guitar and Bragg's soaring vocals." With the release of her song "The Right Track," Nashville Scene named her an "Ace songwriter" and described it as "an upbeat shuffling tune in which Bragg reaffirms her trust in herself." On Valentine's Day, Bragg released two songs "Fight" and Fool." Rolling Stone stated "Both songs depict scenarios in which the characters lay themselves bare, revealing pain even as they open themselves up for more. It's a thread that continues through all of Violets as Camouflage."
Tour Dates:
03/21 - Nashville, TN @ Trimble House
03/23 - Palo Alto, CA @ House Concert
03/28 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hotel Cafe
03/29 - Huntington Beach, CA @ House Concert
03/31 - San Diego, CA @ House Show
04/10 - Appleton, WI @ Rhythms & Brews at Stone Arch at Riverview Gardens
04/11 - Chicago, IL @ Haymarket Americana Series
04/13 - Cincinnati, OH @ Wyoming Community Coffee
04/19 - Knoxville, TN @ Blue Plate Special
04/20 - Hayesville, NC @ Peacock Performing Arts Center
05/04 - LaGrange, TX @ The Bugle Boy
05/30 - Houston, TX @ Anderson Fair
05/31 - Galveston, TX @ Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe
06/01 - Houston, TX @ Clear Creek Harbour Concerts
06/02 - Houston, TX @ House in the Heights
06/08 - Minneapolis, MN @ The Warming House
06/09 - Madison, WI @ Waterfront Festival
06/19 - Nashville, TN @ Bluebird Cafe
Praise for Violets as Camouflage:
"Classic country twang with broken hearted sentiment." - Rolling Stone
"Violets' 14 tracks are among the most intensely personal Bragg has ever written." - Billboard
"Bragg spins threads from years of experiences into a magnificent form of Southern storytelling. These new tracks are deeply personal, but not in a diaristic sense. They are refined and draw from a stockpile of understanding that took years to accumulate." - Nashville Scene
"On Violets as Camouflage, [Bragg] plunges into emotional depths that have never been explored." - PopMatters
"The feelings are stronger, the emotions deeper, the lyrics closer to the heart." - No Depression
"Bragg has raised the bar, seemingly a daunting task after her stunningly strong previous album. Yet, this is stronger. It's one huge adult dose. Drink in its messages and its unadorned, straight-forward beauty." - Glide Magazine
