Royal Blue

You can’t be John Hiatt’s daughter without learning something about songwriting. On Lilly Hiatt’s second album, the spectacular *Royal Blue*, she shows just how much of an advantage her family’s genetic line has given her. It helps that her band includes Beth Finney on lead guitar, since it’s Finney’s sparkling riffs that take songs like “Somebody’s Daughter” and “Jesus Would’ve Let Me Pick the Restaurant” and transforms them into tough Stones-like rockers. Adam Landry’s production further enhances Hiatt’s strong and sensitive sides, giving her a live feel that suggests youth can triumph over veteran experience, especially when the talent is soul deep.

If Lena Dunham is her generation’s bullseye for narcissistic neurosis, then Lilly Hiatt is the Gen X/Y femme intellectuelle…

Not a lot of artists would claim both Lucinda Williams and Dinosaur Jr. as influences, but on her second album, 2015's Royal Blue, Lilly Hiatt genuinely sounds like someone who has both of those artists in regular rotation, even if she bears little direct resemblance to either.