In Review: “Small Town Minds” by Katie Frank

by: Tremblin’ Jack

Every once in a while you hear a record… (Come on, you can do better than that, Jack.)

Every now and then you stumble on a new artist… (You suck at opening lines, Jack, you really do.)

We found someone…(yeah, that’s the one, really got their attention now)…her name is Katie Frank, and she just released a new EP called Small Town Minds (really doing it now, Jackie boy), and I like it (beautifully said).

Listen here:

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/katiefrank/small-town-minds

Katie moved to Nashville to escape the Philly Phanatic. (Is it a bird or a horn or the deformed spawn of Barney and a bald eagle? One may never know…anyway…) Philadelphia, ahhh, the birthplace of a lot of things other than Katie (she’s from Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania), including: plastic cheese, scrapple (WTF is that stuff, anyway?), people who want to be from New Jersey, New Jersey transplants who wish they were born in Philly, some guys that signed some old piece of paper (Herbie Hancock, I think, was one of their names), people who celebrate cracks in bells, and a few strip clubs…you get the gist.

On her newest effort Small Town Minds, Miss Frank is well-seasoned, like the paper-thin beef on a Gino’s cheesesteak…(—bam! Another Philly reference…great job, Jack, you’re slaying it…). Together with a moderately talented producer, Bobby Holland (Maggie Rose, zz ward, The Daybreaks, Kesha), and her all-star cast of players—Matt Pynn on pedal steel (Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Post Malone), Billy Justineau on keys (Eric Church), and Justin Ostrander on lead guitar (studio musician for Billy Ray Cyrus, Toby Keith, Sam Hunt)—Frank has created something special. The kind of roots/pop/country you would have expected out of the likes of early Sheryl Crow vis-à-vis her “Leaving Las Vegas” days.

The EP starts off with the up-tempo title track, “Small Town Minds.” “Nobody’s coming for your pride, nobody’s breaking in tonight, until you're safe inside your little small town mind, while the world leaves you behind,” sings Katie.

“Dark Cloud” starts with a baritone at the front of the mix while a pedal steel cries in the distance, haunting, evocative, brooding… Katie’s voice navigates us though an all-too-common story of young love and a codependent relationship.

Our personal favorite track is “Come Clean.” “We love, we hate, we give, we take, we’re bound to break each other down.” (Waaaaaah, come on, Jack, you're almost done, keep it together.) “But I don’t wanna go, can’t watch you anymore, nothing’s gonna turn me around.” Katie proclaims, “You keep throwing dirt on me, so I can’t see, you won’t even recognize me, when I come clean.” …We do, Katie Frank, we do.

All in all, Small Town Minds by Katie Frank is a solid seven-song EP that leaves you wanting more. Katie, who left healthcare and the Northeast behind in search of greener leaves (I think that’s how the saying goes), has found her place in Nashville and has driven her flag deep into the bedrock. Small Town Minds is Bohemian-Oatmeal-Certified Tasty… Dig it.

(Great job Jack, you did it. I’m proud of you…is hugging yourself sad?)