When
Blue Roses arrived in June 2019,
Runaway June was on tour with
Carrie Underwood and
Maddie & Tae. Based on this debut album, it was a fitting pairing.
Blue Roses occupies a space between
Underwood's gilded diva-pop and the sly side of
Maddie & Tae, accentuating both the steely and tender aspects of both. Although
Runaway June tends to adhere to the middle of the road -- they favor sunny melodies and clean, crisp settings -- the trio of Naomi Cooke, Hanna Mulholland, and Jennifer Wayne aren't afraid to quicken the tempos or crank the amps. A brawny cover of
Dwight Yoakam's "Fast as You" serves as a testament to the latter, but
Runaway June sounds even better when they thread that attitude into softer settings. Witness "Buy My Own Drinks," whose liberated swagger echoes that of
Maddie & Tae's "Girl in a Country Song" or the bittersweet undercurrent that acts as a balance to the otherwise sprightly "Trouble with This Town." On ballads, the trio is equally deft: "We Were Rich" is vividly etched and "Blue Roses" is a plaintive and heart-rending weeper that evokes any number of close-harmony country trios. "Blue Roses" may be the one unadorned number on
Blue Roses, but its presence illustrates
Runaway June's sturdy foundation, while the rest is gleaming state-of-the-art country-pop, the kind that glides easily into the mainstream yet lingers in the mind long after it's stopped playing. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine