Hear Krystle Warren's Bluesy and Beautiful New Album 'Three The Hard Way' [Premiere]

Photo Credit: Christopher Newton for Krystle Warren 

The Kansas City soul specialist paints with deep blues and stirring sharpness on her first album in 5 years

It was only a few months back that Krystle Warren, a midwestern musician with a taste for brawny, soul-rattling blues and gospel, graced us with gratitude on the singer's first single off today's offering, Three The Hard Way.

HEAR: Krystle Warren is a Light in Dark Times on Spirited New Single "Thanks and Praise"

On "Thanks and Praise," Warren's sound is indebted to (and a lush extension of) spirited, slow-churn church grooves that have spent the last century empowering and emboldening protest and activism. Her new album, out today with production and engineering from Ben Kane (D'Angelo's Black Messiah, Emily King's The Switch) and Warren herself, cuts with encouraging wit against a sparse backdrop of country twang and handclap punctuation, a big, boisterous voice doing the heavy-lifting and heart-swelling. And though the album feels intrinsically connected to the gospel canon, Warren is crystalline on what feeds her frequency and where the sacred/secular line is drawn:

I don’t agree with the ideology of organized religion, however, the musical expression in faith music is intoxicating. Music is the key to spirituality, not doctrine. Living abroad hasn't changed or evolved my position on the church; it’s just made me seemingly more interesting.

Hear Krystle Warren's bluesy and beautiful new album, Three The Hard Way, below and hit the link to grab your copy via Bandcamp today. Catch her live and direct at Zebulon in Los Angeles on October 3rd. Reserve your seat here via Ticketfly.

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