Annie Stensland Spun Roots-Reverent Country into Breakup Playlist Gold on ‘You Ain’t Worth My Chase’ –

When a breakthrough country singer-songwriter can leave you as invested in her heartbreak vignettes as you are when your best friend breaks away from the guy you always bit your tongue about hating, you just know they’re going to go far. Annie Stensland’s You Ain’t Worth My Chase invites you to live vicariously through the grace of her stripped-back, roots-reverent slice of Americana, which cuts right to the core of the ‘better off without you’ rhetoric.

The vindication within the self-empowered lyrics almost becomes your own as you’re fuelled by the recognition of how sweet it is to take losses in your stride, especially when what’s lost never matched your worth. Pop chart toppers could learn a thing or two from Stensland, from the magnetism in her diaphanously soft yet unreckonable harmonies and the way she traverses the emotional spectrum through melody.

With nuanced but stridently efficacious rock-leaning crescendos, evocative piano against assuring acoustic guitar strings, and her natural talent as a troubadour of soulful maturity, You Ain’t Worth My Chase deserves a spot on every breakup Spotify playlist. It feels like there isn’t an expanse wide enough for her voice not to resound across.

Colorado-born and now Nashville-based, Stensland writes from a place shaped by the classic country lineage of Alan Jackson, Loretta Lynn and George Strait, while letting folk warmth and rock muscle sharpen her storytelling, all of that paid off in spades in her seminal sophomore release, which followed her debut with her infectious earworm, You Hate Country Music.

You Ain’t Worth My Chase is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast