“Melodic Modern Country Sound” – Maverick Magazine gives Freight Train Love its top (4 Star) rating!

The November/December 2014 issue of Maverick magazine (UK) gives Freight Train Love the maximum 4-star rating, and reviewer Paul Collins has this to say about Hilary Scott’s new album:

“If there is such a thing as creative country pop then this is it from an underrated singer songwriter who, after being in the business for 15 years now has to contend with a near namesake in the platinum selling arrivistes Lady Antebellum playing much the same style of music.

Blessed with a powerful voice and equally at home on guitar, keyboards or violin Hilary is a talented lady and she writes good songs too, seven of the ten on this album are from her pen, including the title track which starts things off.  “Freight Train Love” has a yearning, soulful R&B feel to it the timeless theme of not being ready to let someone else into your life but unable to do anything about it.

Hilary’s brother…[was] lost just before starting her music career…she changed her real name of Helm and adopted his first name as her stage name.  “Flowers On Mars” is from a previous EP of Hilary’s and is as good an expression of disillusionment with the world and its ways as you will get.  So good in fact that the song won recent Americana and Roots Music awards.

There are a couple of songs early on that do not add much to the overall product:  “Help” and “Get Your Love” are fairly average country ballads.  Hilary really comes alive on the duet with Nashville songwriter Kevin Fisher on “If You Don’t Love Me”.  This track is good enough to be listed in the Musical Collaboration category at the CMAs.  Also very good is Hilary’s cover of Neil Young’s “Lotta Love”, which comes up as the penultimate track here.  The final track “Don’t Make It Alive” is an expressive message to an ex who Hilary has no desire to see again.

Funded by her fans…There is clearly a lot riding on this album and it deserves a wide audience.”

Note: This review has been edited to remove a couple of factual inaccuracies by the reviewer.  As of this posting, the review has not yet been posted on Maverick Magazine‘s website.