CD - Charlotte Cornfield - Hurts Like Hell

1CD

"Hurts Like Hell" is Toronto songwriter Charlotte Cornfield’s sixth album, and the first she’s recorded since the birth of her daughter in 2023 - an inflection point for her both as a person and an artist. The album’s recurrent themes of personal growth and renewal, of love’s perseverance through difficulty and shame and awkwardness, are rooted there.

Much of the magic of "Hurts Like Hell" happens in the space Cornfield makes for harmony. Taken up by such luminaries as Buck Meek (“Hurts Like Hell”) or Christian Lee Hutson (“Lost Leader”), characters are sung into life as if with a brushstroke. When she’s joined by El Kempner (Palehound) or Bridget Kearney (Lake Street Dive), it’s a dazzling facet of the natural, lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry of her band. On “Kitchen,” Maia Friedman (Dirty Projectors) mirrors Cornfield’s sense of astonishment at finding herself in love, rendering the emotion at its ethereal peak. On “Living With It,” she’s joined by Feist, who Cornfield connected through a group chat for mothers who are touring musicians.