H.C. McEntire Shares New Single 'Rows of Clover'

H.C. McEntire kicks off the new year with a moving new single, "Rows of Clover," released today. The latest track from her new album Every Acre (out January 27 via Merge Records), "Rows of Clover" is a grief-stricken lamentation on the loss of a "steadfast hound."

"As an artist, if what I'm after is meaning and understanding, then vulnerability is how I find my edges," explains McEntire. "In my experience, if that pursuit is honest and unfiltered, on some level it will also be uncomfortable. Every Acre encouraged a slow observation of everything around me-great heights and vast depths, immeasurable static, and some fragments still coming into focus."

She continues, "The chorus lyrics in 'Rows of Clover' arrived before anything else on this album. They are dark and straightforward, unapologetic-a body in pain, a broken spirit, a tired heart. I needed to acknowledge my grief and depression in an unmistakable way; to name it and know the feeling of it being lifted by my lungs.

In contrast, and written much later, the verses offer observations of a more poetic kind, kneeling beside that same garden bed: hunters planting millet and rye; a fawn born in the front yard; sundown through cedars; burn barrels roaring orange; fresh pink ribbons tagging the ridgeline around me. From the center, looking out-I sowed the red clover, to start over again."

Over the course of nine poignant songs (including two tracks with backing vocals from S.G. Goodman and Amy Ray), Every Acre explores the acres of our physical and emotional homes, as McEntire grapples with existential themes of grief, loss, and links to land and loved ones with an unwavering honesty.

The album is already generating early buzz, with the first two singles "Soft Crook" and "Dovetail" receiving praise from BrooklynVegan, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, The Boot, and more. McEntire's latest single, "New View," was recently hailed by NPR Music's #NowPlaying as "a song that evokes the winsome austerity of autumn via understated instrumentation reverberating with a warmth and sonic expansiveness reminiscent of Daniel Lanois' Acadie."

Raised in the Blue Ridge foothills of rural Appalachia before earning her B.F.A. in Creative Writing, H.C. McEntire first established a reputation for her raw, soulful voice as frontwoman of Mount Moriah and later as a backup singer in Angel Olsen's band. She struck out on her own in 2018 with her debut solo album LIONHEART, followed by the celebrated 2020 sophomore effort Eno Axis.

McEntire has garnered widespread acclaim from press including Aquarium Drunkard, BrooklynVegan, UNCUT, UPROXX, Stereogum and Pitchfork, who praised her "searing voice and imagistic songwriting," as well as Flood who declared, "McEntire's vocals have topsoil grit while being soaring and formidable."

Listen to the new single here: