New York City born, Muscle Shoals veteran songwriter, Emily Duff, is excited to announce that in the dead-ass drip of summer, on July 23rd, her latest pack of songs, entitled Razor Blade Smile, will hit you harder than a bag of rolled quarters. “Clock’s tickin’ don’t be chicken – Going, going, gone y’all better start livin’ – Get up, get out, why ask why – Go Fast, Don’t Die….” is how Duff kicks off the first track, “Go Fast, Don’t Die.” Penned while penned in during a global pandemic, No Depression notes that “Duff is a purveyor of tough sounds for tough love. You wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of it, but it makes for some mighty fine eavesdropping”
With the world turned upside down and unable to tour her previous record, Emily decided she was “gonna shake the whole damn world until the change falls out…..” and Razor Blade Smile was born. Produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, who also produced Duff’s Born on the Ground (2020), which “recalled the confessional sides of Rosanne Cash and Michelle Shocked, tinged with the feistiness of the Bottle Rockets and Dan Baird,” as per American Songwriter, returns to do what he does best and the result is ten, brand-new, killer songs that prove once again that Emily Duff is a songwriter’s songwriter; delivering hooks, riffs, lyrics and grooves that hang with the classics in your Desert Island Disc collection.
“Duff has all the makings of a star – the sheer tenacity of Patti Smith, the gruff demeanor of Lucinda Williams, and the knowing stance of Emmylou Harris all wrapped in one resolute individual,” opines Goldmine. With Ambel (Del Lords, Joan Jett) on electric guitar, Keith Christopher (Lynyrd Skynyrd) on bass, Charlie Giordano (Bruce Springsteen) on keyboards, Phil Cimino on drums & Mary Lee Kortes on BG Vocals, Duff’s acoustic guitar and lead vocals rise to the top with “grit, honey & melody” states Classic Rock Magazine.
Emily Duff’s small-batch brand of Sweet & Sour Rock & Roll, with a great big hit of country soul, digs deep, weaving a patchwork of sin, tragedy, romance and regret that lies at your feet begging to be mended & tended without an ounce of pity. A dark optimist, Emily Duff is a unique voice at a crazy & crucial time. A prolific songwriter and humble servant of song, Emily was born in Queens, and raised by a pack of cigarettes. Her Mama taught her four perfect chords and then ran off, leaving Emily to figure the rest out on her own.
With two records recorded at FAME in Muscle Shoals, Maybe in the Morning (2017) and Hallelujah Hello(2019), “Duff brings a touch of Muscle Shoals and just a bit of Memphis, but at her core, she sounds like a mix of Willie Nile with the punk-rock snarl of Joan Jett, and the devil-may-care free-spiritedness of Wanda Jackson, succinctly puts Chris Griffey of Concert Hopper.
Back again at Ambel’s Cowboy Technical Services in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Razor Blade Smile is a perfect mix of Punk Rock Poetry and Contemplative Country Soul that stirs the core of every living, breathing human in need of a personal anthem for these turbulent times. Truly Americana at its root,
Razor Blade Smile personifies the grit and tenacity that we wear while facing the tragic but true reality that dreams often become nightmares, and a barbed wire grin, dripping with electric guitars, can cut straight through adversity, keeping those “high heels” moving forward.
