Kaitlyn Kohler Releases “Everywhere I Go”

If there’s only one thing that matters to Kaitlyn Kohler, its authenticity, and that’s more than obvious to anyone who hears her new single “Everywhere I Go” this season. “Everywhere I Go” has the stylish cosmopolitan construction of something that you might expect to find in a trending playlist online, but perhaps its best feature happens to be what it doesn’t have – filler. There aren’t any virtuosic breakdowns nor allusions to previously released material in the country music universe, and try as you might, you aren’t going to find the structural bones of something that could be described as puritanical from an aesthetical point of view.

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Kohler isn’t trying to dazzle us with her ability to keep up with the Joneses in this single; she’s on a mission to give us whole melodies that don’t fracture at the first twist in the tempo. Her approach is steeped in surrealist thought but far too focused to qualify as being rootsy, and while her vocal style is a little pastoral for the setting, the guitar she brings into the fold here doesn’t sound straight out of the rural backcountry. This is her most organic track so far, but it’s very much in line with what I was hoping to hear in her latest studio recording. 

There’s a lot of pressure on the bassline as we get into the chorus – the most subtle part of this and most any country single – but the vocal lives up a hearty release in the hook that creates a lot of extra breathing room with the percussion as compensation. Indeed, the production style is a lot glossier than what we heard in 2019’s “Everything’s Here but You,” but at the time that single first debuted, I don’t know that Kohler was ready to manage a standard country varnish with the raw sound she was working with at the time.

The polish is necessary for this track, primarily to highlight where she’s evolved and what she’s remaining consistent at, and it nevertheless makes me want to hear a straight vocal version of “Everywhere I Go” (which is a goal when making this kind of a venture within the four restrictive walls of a recording studio). I loved what I heard in Kaitlyn Kohler’s first few singles, and even with my expectations being pretty high coming into this review, I can honestly say this young woman hit it out of the park in “Everywhere I Go.”

Her swagger is something to marvel at in itself, but what she chooses to do with it when the microphone is in her hands is worth a resounding round of applause from country music critics around the country right now. She’s bravely taking different influences and merging them into a cocktail that is uniquely her own, and while I don’t think this song is going to be the last hit she produces as a solo artist, I do believe it’s going to serve as a milestone in her long road to the big shot spotlight she truly deserves to be in. 

Mindy McCall