First Time Feeling

Imbued with the grit of vintage country music and the grace of gospel, Leah Blevins debut album is a scrapbook of sorts, a collage of feelings and memories from a decade spent working in the big city of Nashville while missing the small town she left behind. Its a timestamp of my twenties, says the Sandy Hook, Kentucky, native. Here are all the stories and all the experiences from that decade. Here are all the mixed emotions Ive felt about things Ive gone through and people Ive met along the way. First Time Feeling turns tribulations into what Blevins calls bundles of triumphs, which lend weight to her well-observed lyrics and gravity to her soulful vocals. Its about coming into womanhood, but its more than just a coming-of-age story. Its me discovering that Im capable of writing a song on my own. Im capable of staying sober. Im capable of all these things that once felt so far out of reach. Within those walls these songs had to be unapologetically honest. Or, as she puts it on the bluesy opener Afraid, Have you ever been afraid, with nowhere to hide? Scared of nothing, but youre running inside? . I want people to find something relatable within these ten songs. But for me theyre a reminder that all the pain that I went throughwhich isnt that different from the pain every human goes throughits all mine. By making this album, Ive taken it, Ive owned that pain, Ive made it mine, and Ive wrapped it up with a bow on top.