H.C. McEntire: A Journey to LIONHEART
H.C. McEntire, known as the compelling frontwoman of Mount Moriah, has embarked on a solo journey with her debut album, LIONHEART. Her evolution from band leader to solo artist is marked by a remarkable blend of authenticity and collaboration. Stereogum aptly describes her voice as “weary, wise, and bright as morning sunshine all at once,” a quality that suffuses the entire album. LIONHEART is a testament to McEntire’s artistic range, simultaneously powerful and introspective, capturing the listener’s attention with its intricate lyrical compositions and resonant melodies.
In creating LIONHEART, McEntire curated a roster of artists who have both inspired and complemented her sound. The album features collaborations with a diverse and accomplished group of musicians, including feminist punk icon Kathleen Hanna, indie folk luminary Angel Olsen, Indigo Girls’ Amy Ray, alt-country singer-songwriter Tift Merritt, and renowned guitarist William Tyler. The ethereal harp of Mary Lattimore and the multi-instrumental talents of Phil Cook further enrich the album’s sonic landscape. Despite the notable guest appearances, LIONHEART remains distinctly McEntire’s, a reflection of her deep-seated commitment to authenticity. Her ability to seamlessly integrate her personal narrative with the contributions of these varied artists speaks to her skill as a songwriter and a collaborator.
Mount Moriah’s music was often characterized by its poignant storytelling and exploration of Southern identity, themes that McEntire continues to explore in her solo work. However, her individual artistry brings a new level of intimacy and vulnerability to the forefront. While Mount Moriah’s music was a collective exploration of sound and identity, McEntire’s solo efforts delve deeper into her personal experience, confronting themes of love, loss, faith, and self-discovery with a candor that is both brave and refreshing.
The transition from band to solo artist can be fraught with challenges, especially for those who have become synonymous with their group’s sound. Yet, McEntire’s shift feels both natural and necessary. Mount Moriah, unlike more commercially driven bands, such as Paramore, always carried a sense of impermanence, as if its members were transient explorers of a shared musical space rather than long-term settlers. The dissolution of Mount Moriah seemed less like a breakup and more like a natural progression, a sentiment echoed in McEntire’s decision to embark on her solo journey. Her transition into solo work is not a departure from Mount Moriah’s ethos but rather an extension of it, a deeper dive into the themes that have always captivated her.
For long-time readers of Durham Cool, our affinity for Mount Moriah and H.C. McEntire is well-documented. Her voice, both literally and figuratively, has been a consistent presence in our coverage of the music scene, resonating with the authenticity and emotional depth that we value. McEntire’s move towards solo work represents not just a new chapter in her career but an evolution of her sound and artistic vision. With LIONHEART, she has created a work that is both a reflection of her past and a bold statement of her future, a powerful reminder of the enduring power of personal storytelling in music.
As McEntire steps into the spotlight with LIONHEART, she does so not as a new artist but as a seasoned storyteller, whose journey has led her to a place of profound self-expression. Her debut solo album is more than just a collection of songs; it is a declaration of independence, a reaffirmation of her identity, and a testament to the power of artistic authenticity. For those who have followed her career, LIONHEART is both a continuation and a revelation, a glimpse into the heart of an artist who remains as vital and compelling as ever.
Published on Jan 29, 2018
H.C. McEntire – Red Silo
H.C. McEntire (Mount Moriah)
Red Silo
The Pinhook – LIONHEART release, Night Two
Durham, NC
2-10-18
Music
SONG
Red Silo
ARTIST
H.C. McEntire
ALBUM
LIONHEART
LICENSES
[Merlin] mergerecords (on behalf of Merge Records); LatinAutorPerf, Polaris Hub AB, House of Hassle Publishing LLC, Exploration Group (Music Publishing), Abramus Digital, and 2 Music Rights Societies
As the singer for Mount Moriah, H.C. McEntire first gained attention presiding over the North Carolina band’s earthy country-rock realm. And while her solo debut is just as rootsy, it finds McEntire adopting a more nuanced approach to her Americana inclinations. Her organic Southern charm still spills out from every corner, whether on the graceful, piano-based ballad “A Lamb, a Dove,” the chamber-folk feel of “Wild Dogs,” or the full-bodied forward momentum of “Quartz in the Valley.”
Get your copy of the new release before your friends and family 😌😊😌😉
H.C. McEntire – New View (Official Music Video)
H.C. McEntire – One Great Thunder (Official Music Video)
H.C. MCENTIRE
“ONE GREAT THUNDER”
DIRECTED BY / EDITED BY VICE COOLER
STARRING H.C. MCENTIRE
CONCEIVED AND COMPLETED IN LOS ANGELES OVER A 24 HOUR PERIOD ON APRIL 17, 2018
re: Every Acre — July 21, 2022
For weeks I have tried to compose an intriguing and articulate synopsis of this album, something digestible and succinct. Ten pages, four restarts, but nothing was landing right. Frankly, it feels impossible to presentationally compress Every Acre into a few neat paragraphs because I’m living through its thick motions and messiness in real-time. Because the truth is: I’m still lost, staggering through the woods somewhere inside it.
Writing Every Acre was an act of survival and it is the most personal album I’ve made. It is also the most honest. And with all due respect, I want the lyrics to do the talking. That is where I walked intimately with my depression, loss, betrayal, love, impermanence, confusion. The words are where I sorted the pain. Grief doesn’t happen in a straight line – there is no quick elixir, no barometer for progress, no pace to follow – because there is no real finish line. Just forward.
What I will say is it was written in deep quarantine isolation and it presses on the importance of bearing witness, trying to get through one day at a time, doing the best you can with what you have in that moment, with one foot in front of the other. That is how I started to slowly dig below the surface – into ownership, into ancestors, into stewardship, into the delusion of power and last names and property lines. I learned that if I want to see things as they really are, if I am brave enough to accept the truth, I need to engage with the uncomfortable and unknown. Be present. Get tender. Stay curious. Keep compassionate. Choose courage. Invite the suffering to the surface and surrender what I think I need the most.
When collecting material for this album, I felt an unfamiliar inclination to leave room for unborn ideas, trusting they would reveal themselves in the studio. I came to know a calmness in allocating for emptiness. A large part of my journey to healing has manifested in the depth of my collaboration – with Missy, Luke, Casey, and Daniel; an alchemy for which I am most grateful, and most proud. Together, and together only: we made Every Acre. Sometimes the best way to understand what’s happening around you, what’s shaping inside you, is to get out of your own way. Let go of the need to name it or nurse it into what you think it ought to be. Lean into the chests of those who’ve seen you from all sides already and live in that hold for a while.
If you listen, look closely, it will all show itself to you. Houses have stories – beneath coats of paint, inside chimney flues, rosin fingerprints, cobwebs in corners. The land does too – forgotten trading paths, river stones, buried pits of Ball jars. Throughout Every Acre I said a slow goodbye to all of them. And in the end, even my beloved hound.
If you ask the full moon for the big love, you will find that new view. Everything might not always dovetail gracefully, or at all, but an unmanufactured life is worth dancing in the shadows for. If you find peace in love’s soft crook, rest inside it as long as you can. And let the clover cover your garden from time to time…sometimes the growing has to happen inside.
Land is a muse. Time is a teacher. Loss is a mentor. Pain is a healer. Nature is holy. Love is a revelator.
And some stories are not yours to tell.
H.C. McEntire – Baby’s Got the Blues (Official Music Video)
From the album LIONHEART, out now on Merge Records.
http://smarturl.it/HC-LIONHEART
Directed and Edited by Jared Hogan
Produced by Heather McEntire and Jared Hogan
Cinematography by Christian Schultz
Titles by Eric Hurtgen
Color Graded by Jacob McKee at The Mill
Dovetail
H.C. McEntire –
![Every Acre If naming is a form of claiming, of being claimed, how is one tethered to both the physical landscape that surrounds us, as well as our own internal emotional landscape—at times calm, at times turbulent, and ever changing? H.C. McEntire’s new album Every Acre grapples with those themes—themes that encompass grief, loss, and links to land and loved ones. And naming—claiming land, claiming self, being claimed by ancestry and heritage—permeates the hauntingly beautiful landscape that is this poignant collection of songs. The songs straddle the line between music and poetry, often weaving back and forth between each realm. In “New View,” McEntire cites poets “Day, Ada, and Laux, Berry, and Olds”—fixtures in the world of writing, whose works are beacons of light over bleak horizons. The beginning of the song is backed by soft guitar plucks that fall on the downbeat and spangle like stars, and, throughout, guitar, bass, and drums swell together gently, mimicking ebbing and flowing tides under the moon. McEntire’s voice (at once tender and fierce) intones the truth of both giving and taking, releasing and claiming: “Bend me, break me, split me right in two. Mend me, make me—I’ll take more of you.” Permeated by the constant heartbeat-like drums, “Shadows” develops quiet ruminations on surrender and loss—reminiscing, moving on. “Walk your way into the river…Is it fever, or surrender?” This ponderous, dreamlike song asks the question of how “to make room,” lyrics that serve as echoing foils to the familiar: “Cornmeal rising high in cast-iron pans. Cattails catching all the copperheads.” How does one make room, for self and for renewal and surrender, when it is so difficult to leave what you know behind? There is the temptation to “leave [a] place just like you found it.” Playing with slivers of descending chromatics, along with the occasional downward-stepping bass, here McEntire yearns for home, and for nesting. And there is also the reality of life—sometimes a casting off, sometimes a shrouded letting go. Perhaps one of the more grief-stricken songs, “Rows of Clover” is a lamentation, one that touches on the loss of a “steadfast hound.” The lone piano in the beginning of the song is rhythmically hymn-like. The stark verse arrangement gradually leads to a chorus that reads like a moody exhale, swollen with lush guitar strums and a Bill Withers–esque understated soul groove. Images of nature, often in mid-growth or decay, are braided through the lyrics. The clover covers “wasted dirt.” Cedars stand guard the ravaged land, a rotting pasture. But what stands out the most is an image of being “down on your knees, clawing at the garden”—the only explicit mention of a person in the song. “It ain’t the easy kind of healing,” sings McEntire, seemingly from further and further away as her voice echoes; and healing takes time, time takes time—truths that linger painfully. “Dovetail” is a song that tells of various women and their various gifts, their various traumas. Instrumentally, the song moves back and forth between solo piano and the addition of bass and drums under vocals. Imagistically, there are women who barrel through. There are “sober and sunkissed” women who never cuss. There are weak women, strong women, women who “[starve] for fathers.” And there are women who leave, and women who stay, who “will never want you gone.” McEntire’s gentle, trembling vibrato—harmonized in thirds in a celebratory manner—calls to mind a rejoicing psalm and shines through these images, leaving the listener cuttingly fraught with emotions—such as wonder, sadness, nostalgia—that can only arise with these juxtapositions. Every Acre is aptly named. Gracious (and graceful) with its lilting melodies and lush harmonies, the album explores the acres of our physical and emotional homes. These songs are not just lyrics; they are more than lyric, reaching for the kind of home that we all seek: one where we can rest and lay down (or tuck away) our burdens of loss. And maybe, moving through every acre of a world that often tries to tear our sense of identity and heritage down, McEntire sheds light on what it is to be human in this life—both stingy and gracious, both hurtful and kind.](https://www.coolmediallc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/HC-McEntire.webp "HC McEntire")
H.C. McEntire – Soft Crook (Official Video)
Music
Mount Moriah – Lament
Director: Habib Yazdi
Director of Photography: Andrew Synowiez
Gaffer: Alex Maness
Production Stills: Lalitree Darnielle
If this will be
Anything
Then let it be
Over
Because the heart can’t keep
Trying
To love something
It doesn’t
If this will be
Anything
Then let it be a
Disaster
A mouthful of bees
Couldn’t stop me
From whispering,
I don’t know you.
But if scars could sing
About the permanent things
They’d say it’s damaged
But it was something.
If this will be anything
Then let it be over
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Heather Mcentire / Robert Miller
Lament lyrics © Rough Trade Publishing
Lament
A great video, a familiar Durham NC setting for an incredible song. The line “a mouthful of bees could not stop me from whispering “I don’t know you”. Quite the rhyming sequence. Consider for just a shutdown moment, the prospect of a mouthful of stirring bees. Next, If stars could sing about the permanent things, they would sing, “It was damaged but it was something”.
