Coasting: CD

On her debut album, Coasting, out March 13, 2020 on Kanine Records, Honeycutt lulls you in with emotional personal stories that are refreshingly selfaware and satirical. Her warmth and charm resonates throughout the catchy guitar pop record. While Honeycutt has been writing songs since she can remember, it wasn’t until she was 21 that she started playing out at small bars in Orlando, Florida. Between working full time to make rent and studying full time at a small community college, Honeycutt fell behind. When her grades dropped, she lost financial aid for school. Honeycutt says, “Something clicked in me after that. I moved into my friends bedroom and shifted focus fully to writing and recording.” The result was an EP she released under the moniker Baby!, but the name quickly proved unsearchable. Honeycutt rebranded herself simply Honey Cutt (2 words) and readied her debut album, Coasting. Her Florida environment heavily influences the ten tracks that make up her debut album. The youngest of seven children, with four older brothers and a single mom, her family found themselves relocating from Asheville, NC to a small migrant farm town in central Florida called Ocoee when she was just 8 years old. “My grandmother was sick so we moved back to my moms hometown. I remember the day we arrived in the U-Haul, and found out that the rental house my mom had made a payment on was actually a craigslist scam. We arrived in Florida with no money, no home, and the medical bills of my dying grandmother. We slept in the homes of strange ‘sort-of’ cousins, around different places in central Florida, until my mom could save up enough for a new place.” Drawing from her experiences growing up below the poverty line and being forced to move often throughout central Florida, those problems didn’t go away when she moved to a big city. In Boston, Honeycutt sought new musical friends and a live band. It was there that she found her footing in the world of live music. Working her way from DIY basement shows to opening for bands like Bully, Gus Dapperton, Varsity, and Calpurnia at some of the cities largest music venues, her talent did not go unnoticed. She earned three Boston music award nominations for best indie rock band alongside the likes of other talented New England based artists like Palehound and Sidney Gish. Honeycutt is ready to debut a full-length record that showcases her relentlessness as an artist. From dirt roads in small Florida towns, to dirty basements flooded with Ivy League college kids dancing along unassumingly to her coy pop tunes, Honeycutt’s love of indie pop and dreamy, surf pop guitar tones run throughout her debut album. Coasting plays off nostalgia but tackles modern issues. On "Vacation" and "Fashion School" she teasingly confronts the wealthy art school scene of the northeast and the self-proclaimed “nice guys” that hang around in that community. She tackles her desperation to break out with the tongue in cheek "Suburban Dream", and when she croons on "All I Have", she is devastating and believable. On title track "Coasting", she is outlining her determination to keep it together mentally while being part of a family that is struggling to cope with poverty. Honeycutt is clever and never overstays her welcome while Coasting is delivered with a vulnerability that is both bracingly fun and energizing.