Indie singer/songwriter Casey Ahern is getting downright brooding in her new single “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye,” and if you’ve been listening to her work in the last couple of years, you’re going to be really taken aback by just how much she’s grown up in 2020. Her last single, “Sunday Driver,” felt like a measurement of her creative depth, and in “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye,” Ahern is stepping out of her comfort zone to try on a heavier rock harmony with Americana cues as colorful as they are endearing to a patriotic element missing from contemporary country music entirely.
URL: https://www.caseyahern.com/
Multi-interpretive lyrics have been a staple of this singer/songwriter’s music thus far, but I would definitely say this single is probably her most straightforward piece of material to see widespread release. “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye” relies more on Ahern’s executional awareness and detailed melodic touch in setting up a sense of emotional encumbrance than it does any of the actual words she’s singing to us, which opens up a great avenue for us to observe her through a more surreal lens than was possible prior to now. I like her creative bravery, and in all actuality, should have anticipated that I’d find as much here.
The unconventional harmony in “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye” draws equal weight from the strings and the lead vocal to create a perfect cocktail of passion when we need it the most in the chorus, but this isn’t enough for me to call it a straight-pop single. There’s still a countrified component that is very much in play as we approach the climax of the song, and if Ahern were to change this part of her personality simply to sell a couple more singles, I don’t think I would be able to respect her compositional integrity with the enthusiasm I have in this instance.
There’s definitely an old school Nashville influence on the hook in “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye,” but other than that, I wouldn’t say any part of this track has the feel of something pre-millennium. It’s obvious to me, and probably most other critics, that Ahern has a lot of interest in preserving the aesthetical pillars of the country music genre through her own experimentations in the studio, but once again in her work, she’s disassociating herself from any of the throwback artists making a pseudo-name for themselves in the underground and mainstream the same in recent years.
While I would rarely recommend trusting the hype surrounding any artist in the pop music lexicon nowadays, this is one deeply skilled western woman I’d have to credit as earning every last bit of the buzz she’s received since dropping “And Me” and “He Was Summer” all the way back in 2018. It’s been a lifetime since then in the world of pop, but her consistency and refusal to sellout core artistic values has made her one of the most reliable singer/songwriters on my radar. She’s worthy of another round of applause here, and I won’t be the only critic to tell you so.
Troy Johnston