Ghosts in the Garden (2025)
“This is a grand seduction of a record by an artist who has always been true to her heart and has perfected the art of digging deep to deliver spirited, nourishing compositions with lyrics which do far more than rhyme…Ghosts in the Garden takes hold and hits you very hard.” Eric Thom, Americana Highways [full review]
“Kris Delmhorst has created yet another Americana masterpiece…it’s not a downer of an album, rather a reflection on a life, an examined life, one that takes the personal and makes it universal. It could also serve as a cautionary tale, don’t sweat the small stuff…life is more, far more, than what’s immediately in front of you.” Amos Perrine, No Depression [full review]
”Ghosts in the Garden proves an ideal example of Delmhorst’s definitive style, one that relies on insight, emotion and a highly knowing perspective…it would be hard to imagine a more compelling set of songs.” Lee Zimmerman, American Songwriter
“Like the poems of Keats, Shelley, and Emily Dickinson, Delmhorst’s songs flourish as odes to impermanence and memory…Ghosts in the Garden displays [her] lyrical brilliance and her ability to call forth the spirits that dwell just behind the joys and sorrows of our lives.” Henry Carrigan, Folk Alley [full review]
“Tender and provocative songs…in her own insightful and caressing way, Delmhorst has effectively addressed the seven stages of grief.” Jim Hynes, Glide Magazine [full review]
“She conjures phantasmic visions of different choices in other lives and lets them wind, serpentine, around our hearts on eleven songs that are haunting in their own right. Apart from the high-octane lockdown-era rocker “Won’t Be Long,” the instrumentation is hushed and understated, which puts the focus on Delmhorst’s lyrics — and her voice, which is rich and full, with a darksome, varnished quality.” Eric Danton, Freakscene [full review]
“Singer-songwriter collections don’t come much more atmospheric and evocative than this…should be required listening for discerning music lovers everywhere.” Kevin Bryan, Bolton News (UK) [full review]
“[Delmhorst] stretches her sound out on an album as sonically adventurous as anything that has come before wile keeping intact her finely tuned songwriting style.” Dan Ferguson, Narragansett Times [full review]
Long Day in the Milky Way (2020)
Boston Globe: Kris Delmhorst’s “Long Day in the Milky Way” is a shimmering compendium of sometimes murmuring, sometimes urgent pop and Americana sounds…while Delmhorst wrote the songs on “Long Day” months prior to the arrival of the pandemic, the fact of coincidence hardly lessens their timeliness. [full review]
Performer Magazine: The songs on this record attest to the darkness that’s to be found, but Delmhorst writes with such prodigious insight and earnest seeking that her songs always allow for the maximum passage of light…Delmhorst is here, as ever, at the top of her game, peerless. [full review]
No Depression: Put plainly, Long Day in the Milky Way is nice to listen to…A continuous source of delight on Long Day in the Milky Way is the powerhouse vocal trio that surrounds Delmhorst consisting of Rose Polenzani, Rose Cousins, and Annie Lynch. [full review]
Glide Magazine: As described, this is a lush, lilting, layered record that at times sounds like a chorale. It takes a concentrated listen to appreciate the strength of Delmhorst’s lyrics. Therein lies even more beauty. [full review]
Worcester Magazine: brooding at times, contemplative at others, but each song takes the album’s persona deeper into herself, and accompanying her on that journey is a truly moving experience. [full review]
The Greylock Glass: Both elegant and understated, Delmhorst’s latest effort weaves a kind of living fabric throughout tracks that dangle questions both asked and answered, propelled by evocative instrumentation and soaring harmonies. Warm without being crowded, virtuosic without being showy, Long Day in the Milky Way reveals an artist at the top of her game. Given what so many have suffered in 2020, Delmhorst also provides hope for better days, a glimpse of light beyond the darkness. [full review]
Folk Radio UK: If ever there was a time for Kris Delmhorst and her new album Long Day in the Milky Way it’s now. When she sings “Keep on pushing and you’ll find a way through,” on Wind’s Gonna Find a Way you believe her, and that’s a message that has never been more useful. As we attempt to struggle through a year many of us would rather forget, she reminds us of the things that we need to carry with us. [full review]
The Wild (2017):
“Captivating.” - Jonathan Frahm, Pop Matters
“Literate, allusive…a marvelous, tense groove that holds throughout, no matter the sonic particulars of individual songs.” - Stuart Munro, The Boston Globe
“THE WILD intertwines loveliness and dustiness until the two are impossible to separate” - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Austerely beautiful tunes” - Minneapolis City Pages
"Indelible, enveloping, hypnotizing... While this is one of Delmhorst's most gently-executed albums, her gifts as a writer and singer are still on display. " - Allan Raible, ABCNews.com
“Delmhorst has always had the ability to play emotional resonance like an instrument, with an unparalleled command of scale and perspective…Blistering honesty [accompanied by] lushness in the music.” - Victor Infante, Worcester Telegram
“Shivery poignancy… haunting atmospheres and emotional rivers.” - Bliss Bowen, Pasadena Weekly
“THE WILD casts a shadowy sense of reflection.” - Paul Robicheau, Improper Bostonian
“Affecting.” - Chris Steffen, AllMusic
“An understated yet stunning album that’s both brilliant and infectious” - Rutland Herald
“A deeply personal collection of quite exceptional songs…Delmhorst has never sounded better, her voice a conduit for lyrics that reveal much yet with discretion and a poet’s insights, while also serving as an instrument in its own right” - David White, RNR Magazine (UK)
“Delmhorst’s writing is remarkably vivid” - Twangville
“THE WILD makes the case for Kris Delmhorst as one of our very best songwriters, situated somewhere between Rickie Lee Jones and Joni Mitchell on the Mt. Rushmore of lyricists. The twelve tracks which constitute THE WILD testify to Delmhorst's radical commitment to nuance.” - Vincent Scarpa, Performer Magazine
“Try and lock the door all you want, but Delmhorst owns a spare set of keys to your heart with songs like “Tracks in the Snow” and “I Don’t Need to Know It All.” - Maine Today
“Unique and unforgettable.” - Next Women of Country
“Masterful songwriter” - The Isthmus
“The genre’s best and brightest” - Springfield Republican
Blood Test (2014):
"Blood Test is filled with gem after gem. From the title track to the sentimental "My Ohio" to the closer, "Lighthouse," Delmhorst's voice floats sweetly as a mother's lullaby and passionately as an aching lover's lament." No Depression
"These are deeply felt songs held close to the chest, full of dusky memories (“My Ohio,” “Hushabye”) and hope for a bright future (“Lighthouse,” “Bees”). Delmhorst may not be in a race to make records, but she makes each one worth the wait." Boston Globe
"This is what Delmhorst captures better than any songwriter in the game: the duality of emotion, how we are never just one thing in any given moment. The beauty and comfort in despondency, the inherent fear in joy, the unspoken hesitation in acts or proclamations of confidence - Kris Delmhorst's songs manage to cover that difficult terrain, putting the microscope on the complexities of human behavior" The Buzz About
“Warm and immediately accessible … a voice that breathes through the speakers” -All Music
Shotgun Singer (2008)
“Beautifully flaunts [a] minimalist artistic approach…among the best tunes Delmhorst has ever recorded…they get better each time you revisit them.” No Depression
“Frequently waltzes through the shadowy realm where light and dark meet…Delmhorst has become a favorite among music fans who like to be challenged as well as entertained.” Music Box Online
“A work of lo-fi beauty… evidence of an artist taking flight” Boston Herald
“A gorgeous, tender, evocative voice and a textured and varied musical palette” -Amazon
“Shotgun Singer is the jaw-dropping song collection that I have always felt Delmhorst was capable of bringing to fruition. My litmus test is, do I really want to hear this record again – for instance, straightaway? This disc assuredly ticks that box.” Folkwax
“A tour de force of singing, writing and production that gains in richness with each repetition.” Performing Songwriter
Strange Conversation (2006):
“This is a remarkable album…as seamless and brave as it is brilliantly creative…don’t let the fact that Virgil and Hermann Broch inspired the title track reduce its deliciously slinky appeal.” Irish Times
"Bold and brilliant… [gives] hot new life to these wise old voices until you’d swear you were listening to heaven’s own hootenanny.” Boston Globe
”We’ve heard many aspirants striving to become ‘the next Norah Jones.’ Most get the cool, ‘come hither’ voice and subtle pop/jazz production down right, then fall short on the essential songs. Seasoned talent Kris Delmhorst has the whole package going on, though…” Philadelphia Daily News
“Alternately moody, euphoric and transcendent, this is the smartest good time you’ll have with a disc all year.” LA Times
”With Strange Conversation, Miss Delmhorst stretches into her stride… few 21st century singers would find the inherent rhythms of Browning’s 1847 ‘A Toccata of Galuppi’s’ so easy to interpret, or Whitman’s loping ‘Passage to India’ so natural as Miss Delmhorst has here.” Washington Times
“The album’s greatest instrument, Delmhorst’s voice, is both powerful and tender, falling somewhere between that of Jolie Holland and Patty Griffin.” American Roots
”Her sweet, sleepy vocals, which sometimes recall Lucinda Williams, keep the album fresh and relaxed, and without the pretense a less experienced songsmith might have brought to the project… the album is an assured model of sophisticated songwriting and heartfelt musicianship.” Boston Globe