Noah Kahan’s third studio album, Stick Season is a folk/alternative/country love-letter to the process of grieving, healing, and cursing the trauma of being a small-town boy with big dreams, and a sensitive soul. Written during the Covid-era lockdowns, a sense of burnout, isolation, and deep self-examination punctuate his songs, narrating the collective lament of the younger generation who saw themselves in Kahan’s words.
Ironically, the title of the album which, to yours truly, represents the very essence of Autumn, happens to indicate a complete other time of year; that foggy and undecided stretch of time between the end of Autumn, and the beginning of Winter, which to some folks in Vermont, New England, is known as the Stick Season.
From subtle guitar strumming, to intensely heartfelt singing, the album welcomes you in with a log cabin and hearth-fire ambience, and follows it up with the most gut-wrenching lyrics. In an interview with Billboard, the singer described how he wanted to capture “unprecedented detail” in his writing, and covers issues that resonate with a lot of his fanbase: amongst discussions of mental health, alcoholism, and his parents’ divorce, romantic ballads and cathartic acoustic pieces alternate feelings of grasping at a time past, and fighting against a stagnant, suffocating present.
Catharsis is a key word for Stick Season; having had the privilege of attending one of his live shows, I cannot explain how electric it felt to be part of that crowd, and what an intense sense of relief it brought to shout Kahan’s lyrics in chorus with a group of people who you know feel exactly like you. Whether screaming “I’m homesick” over and over, to sobbing “it’s better to die numb than feel it all,” or even “I’m terrified that I might never have met me,” his words and music weave in and out of your soul in the most deliciously painful way.
Though I will have this album on repeat all year round, there is a special place for it in the symphony of dying leaves and fogged up windows which make Autumn so particular. It could be the feeling of hanging onto something you care so deeply for, as it slips slowly and surely away from you – from a golden memory to some steely, cold darkness which nonetheless has a homely feel to it.
It may not come across to everyone that way, but you’d best believe that for the next few months, I’ll be sat at my window with a warm drink and a fluffy blanket, looking out of my window to the trees lining my road – and I’ll be wondering if the leaves are the same colour at my parents’ house, the same colour as they were when I walked those small-town streets as a child.
