Ali McGuirk at The Press Room: Soul, Smoke, and Spiritual Reckoning

by Mia Grodsky

It’s hard to mistake Ali McGuirk’s voice for anyone else’s. It has a grit that feels earned, not inherited, and a smoky edge that suggests years of late-night sets, crowded vans, and quiet discipline.

At The Press Room in Portsmouth on October 12, she brought that power, and her new album Watertop, to life with a performance that felt equal parts slow-burning sermon, and self-examination.

The night opened with McGuirk’s bassist and longtime collaborator, Cilla Bonnie, performing an ethereal solo set on her 5 string bass. Bonnie was hypnotic and raw, her storytelling unfolding like a long exhale, the kind of release that only comes through deep vulnerability. Bonnie’s set set the tone for the evening: intimate, grounding, and disarming.

When McGuirk took the stage, she carried that same spirit forward, and wasted no time in showing us what she was here to do – sing.

There’s something about her presence that feels both guarded and accessible – she doesn’t perform for you so much as invite you into her orbit, and lets you spend a few minutes observing the world from her point of view.

Throughout the night she drew heavily from Watertop, performing Call It What You Want, When I See You, Graveyard, Where Does All The $ Come From, and Exorcist. The songs from Watertop carry a slow-burn melancholy, a kind of emotional humidity that hangs in the air. But her band’s arrangements, specifically the charged electric guitar solos, added the right amount of electricity to reveal that this music wasn’t happy or sad – it was messy, raw, and deeply human.

Later, McGuirk covered Jesse Welles’s Poor, turning its grit into a soulful reckoning. Her phrasing gave the song new contours and when she hit the chorus, her voice carried the entire room effortlessly.At one point, while deciding what to play next, McGuirk turned to her band and laughed. “You see? I’m a tyrant,” she said, teasing herself for bossing them around. “Trump’s a tyrant, and tyrant knows tyrant.” The room erupted in laughter before McGuirk and her band kicked into the next song.

X Boyfriends, a track from her 2022 album Til It’s Gone, was a highlight of the night. Funky and self-aware, it had the crowd swaying as the band effortlessly locked in and loosened up. The Work, another track from that album, came to life every time she hit the chorus. “You can’t skip the work,” she sang, a reminder of what artistry demands.

If Til Its Gone was her release valve, then Watertop is McGuirk’s introspective turn – proof that vulnerability and levity can live in the same breath.

McGuirk’s gift lies in that duality. She makes soul music that isn’t nostalgic, smoky runs that aren’t manufactured, and spiritual reflection that feels lived rather than preached.

By the end of the night, the air inside The Press Room felt heavier, fuller, like McGuirk’s voice had seeped into the walls and floor.

Watertop is an album that asks for presence. As the final notes lingered, fading like smoke above the crowd, it was clear everyone there had given her exactly that, and in return we were tourists in her world, observing and the moral gray zones and spiritual lessons she’s spent years exploring.

photos: Robert Schneider