First impressions can be tricky; sometimes they hold up, and sometimes we end up scratching our heads, wondering what we were thinking.
My first impression of Katie Pruitt was, in a nutshell: What. A. Voice.
The first song on Expectations hadn’t faded from my earbuds before I’d landed on Pruitt’s website to order a copy of this album. A few days later it arrived and went into The Stack, as the small skyscraper of to-be-reviewed discs next to my monitor is known.
Thankfully, when I hit “play” for a second time a few weeks later, history repeated. “Wishful Thinking” enters with gentle electric chords and fiddle and an airy atmosphere that Pruitt fills up with a voice that is absolutely beguiling: clear and husky, vulnerable and strong, at ease with everything from a whispery entreaty to a full-throated demand. By the time she started hitting the big notes at the steady-building song’s climactic crescendo, every last hair on the back of my neck was standing at attention once again.
Atlanta-born, Nashville-based Katie Pruitt grew up in a Catholic household and went to Catholic schools. By the time she reached high school she was an experienced musical theater performer and a budding guitarist and songwriter; a few years later, at 23 she won the Buddy Holly Prize from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. An initial 2018 EP drew attention from Rolling Stone and NPR, the latter lauding Pruit as an artist who “possesses a soaring, nuanced and expressive voice, and writes with devastating honesty.” 
Pruitt’s Nashville base has contributed to her being identified as a country artist, and her music has some of those elements, but to these ears, her songwriting has more of an Americana singer-songwriter feel to it, featuring perceptive and often soul-baring confessionals that build on the folk tradition using both country and roots-rock elements.
The artist Pruitt matches up most closely with—and whom she acknowledges as an influence—is Brandi Carlile. That influence is evident on “My Mind’s A Ship (That’s Going Down),” a grand, dramatic number addressing mental health that’s part power ballad and part Broadway show-stopper. By contrast, the title track follows with a ’70s soft-rock vibe, a sprinkle of Joni Mitchell here, a dash of Dan Fogelberg there as this thrummy number gradually balloons outward. “Out Of The Blue” is where the country elements come on strong for the first time, a gorgeous ballad that finds Pruitt nailing those Big Sky notes, pulling you in with her expressive delivery.
Track five is the moment when Pruitt goes from circling the perimeter of the main issue she’s been grappling with to facing it head on. “Normal” is a stunning, heartrending song about trying to figure out who you are, and realizing what the answer to that question means for you. “Scared as hell ’cause I knew I was different,” she sings, “What's it like to be normal / To want what normal girls should.” Finally, she meets her first true love: another woman. “The world told us to fit in but we did the opposite.”
From that peak, Pruitt piles on with one powerhouse after another. The brooding “Grace Has A Gun” opens up like an acoustic Jason Isbell murder ballad but eventually explodes into the sky. Then “Searching For The Truth” delivers another lyric full of hard-won insight beyond her years: “It feels like I'm still searching for the truth / In a world that's always lying.” And then “Georgia” puts a capstone on this run of songs, a tremendous, soul-baring piano ballad about growing up gay in a conservative environment and finding community through music.
The emotional arc of the album is completed by a pair of love songs. First “Loving Her” features sunny acoustic picking as Pruit declares: “If loving her hurts, I’ll keep on hurting / If it means staying true to who I am / You may not agree but like me you’re learning / That people don’t like what they don't understand.” Then “It’s Always Been You” closes things out with a gorgeous, piano-and-strings ballad of love and devotion. Does it go on a bit? Maybe, but wow.
Pruitt is one of those rare singer-songwriters whose voice feels like a perfect match for her lyrics, all at once vulnerable and powerful, gritty and pure, rangy and in complete control. Expectations is an intense and powerful debut from an exceptional talent.