As they say, it takes a village to raise a child. It’s no different when it comes to putting out a memorable record—take Charlotte Cornfield’s word for it. On Hurts Like Hell, her sixth studio album and first with renowned indie label Merge Records, she builds on her earlier body of work by continuing to explore the little moments between people. The thing about writing music that lives in the little moments between people, as Cornfield does, is that it’s easy to come off as contrived or to be too general with your subject matter. In this case, though, the fabric of the record is stitched together using threads of all different kinds, as Cornfield weaves contributions and influence from her musical community, family, and the past, and coalesces all of it into a tapestry that steers clear of performativity in favour of authenticity.

What it means to write music that lives in the little moments between people is to resist the pull of spectacle, as is so attractive to storytellers. Hurts Like Hell doesn’t detail a series of bombastic events or seek to take you to a place removed from your life, but rather to pull you deeper into the imperfect, intricate realities of things—the second guesses, the things said under one’s breath or thought of in a haze, and the inexplicability of how seemingly benign memories worm their way into the psyche. In theory, this should make the music more relatable; these are the moments that make up the bulk of lived experience. In practice, though, it can be harder for the listener to connect with. Without the scaffolding of a “big” moment, songs risk feeling too much like a simple, undressed slice-of-life; emotionally muted, as though they are circling something without ever quite landing on it.

That risk is compounded by how easily this mode of writing can tip into contrivance. When the subject matter is subtle, the temptation to signal its importance by dressing it up in flowery language or by borrowing too heavily from popular influences can be hard to resist; after all, who wouldn’t look to Dylan, Young, or Lucinda Williams for direction? The masters who have come before were fantastic; to want to emulate them is natural to a degree. However, the result of an overreliance on poetry over substance or the attempt to capture the glow of a legend would be music that insists upon its own intimacy rather than earning it, making talk of small moments feel glossily curated and pandering in nature. It’s a delicate balance: too little framing, and the song drifts; too much, and it begins to feel artificial.

To make matters more complicated, an unsuccessful attempt to skirt away from contrivance can quickly bring about the issue of generality. The “little moments between people” are, by definition, universal, but that universality can flatten into vagueness if not handled carefully. Lines meant to evoke shared experience can end up saying very little at all, offering sentiments that are agreeable but indistinct. Inconsequentiality and the commodification of experience, by way of being too general, is a massive, looming risk across any medium in which one seeks out profundity with too rapacious a zeal rather than pulling from honesty and personal perspective.

Though, at times, Hurts Like Hell slips and falls as it tries to strike this balance─it strikes it nevertheless. It bridges the gap between subjective detail and universal accessibility, sounding altogether soothing and at times subversive in its form. On the whole, Cornfield’s writing carries a conversational clarity that makes even the most fleeting thoughts feel grounded, as though you’ve been dropped into the middle of an ongoing dialogue that is organic and unique to her perspective. There are points on the record where the subject matter feels intentionally unguarded, as Cornfield allows ideas to remain broad enough to invite multiple interpretations, yet specific enough to avoid generality. There’s a naturalism to her delivery and phrasing that helps the songs avoid feeling overly constructed, and the collaborative looseness of the record reinforces that sense of immediacy. 

Moments like the duet on “Living With It”, where Cornfield is joined by Leslie Feist, point to how this approach can highlight a strong voice and creative vision in spite of its risks. The two first made contact via a WhatsApp chat for touring mothers. In an instance of serendipity, Feist reached out privately to Cornfield after a song of hers brought Feist to tears while working on a cottage project, saying “...you’ve somehow situated me in a memory that I had forgotten, maybe never even was mine, but there was something in the way you just told your memory”. Feist’s praise as well as their subsequent collaboration speaks to the same kind of layered, intimate interactions the album is interested in exploring. Feist’s presence doesn’t overwhelm so much as it shadows, echoing and refracting Cornfield’s perspective in a way that feels akin to an internal dialogue, the kind of back-and-forth that defines so many of these “in-between” moments.

All in, Cornfield’s latest effort is a fantastically smooth listen. There are moments that feel more fully realized and specific than others with some that seem content to drift a little, but that drift doesn’t feel like a lack of refinement and consideration. It’s part of the album’s language, as it moves its way through experience rather than pinning it down, smoothing it out, and spitting out a shiny line. It may not always land with a precision that some listeners crave, but Hurts Like Hell never feels disingenuous, and in a mode of songwriting where that is the primary risk, that counts for a hell of a lot.