Julianna Riolino

Having long distinguished herself as more than just a vocal foil in Daniel Romano’s Outfit, songwriter Julianna Riolino stunned with her debut solo LP, All Blue, in 2022, a potent mix of pre-Summer of Love rock, country, and soul. Stepping out from the shadow of The Outfit, the record established Riolino as a songwriting force; an able hand at bruised-heart ballads, pop smolder, and rumpled rock that stretched its roots from EmmyLou to Wanda Jackson to Waxahatchee. For her latest, Julianna doubles down on the classic aura, a record that finds her as assured as ever at the helm. The arrangements are bigger, bolder, and brimming with a sense that Riolino isn’t holding anything back on Echo in the Dust. Not that the last album demurred, but widescreen epics like “Seed,” which takes some turns from the Dusty In Memphis playbook, and “It’s A Shakedown,” that finds Riolino turning time and temperature on a dime, show an adventurousness that’s not to be discounted.

The lines between rock and country blur even more than ever, soaring through organ swells, burnt into blistered chords, hung heavy in harmonies. The album’s intertwined nature themes reflect bloom and rebirth, a transformative process that’s mapped across moments of joy, grief, grievance, and growth. The opening song’s worries about not reaching one’s full fruition seem particularly unfounded by the time the album comes to a close, wiped clean by the following ten stunning pop bouts, but the journey across shaky lines and into assurance is one that’s well earned. It’s a record that wins by not playing safe, a studio wonder that only grows deeper with each listen. With her last Riolino stepped out from the shadow of others, but on Echo in the Dust, she aims to cast her own.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.