SNOCAPS (WAXAHATCHEE & MJ LENDERMAN)

Katie and Allison Crutchfield were only 15 years old when their first band, The Ackleys, played their first show. The twins were obsessive about songwriting, forsaking other hobbies to “put everything into making music,” as Katie once described it. It paid off: Their grungey rock band earned them local buzz in Birmingham, Alabama, and the group they formed next, P.S. Eliot, embraced a feminist perspective and found fans across the country. The sisters briefly formed another project, but by then, they had started making their names apart from one another: Katie as Waxahatchee, and Allison in Swearin’ (and later, as a solo artist).

Each sister has developed her own voice while working independently: Katie’s last two albums have been critically adored and gained her a reputation as a generational songwriter (one also netted her a Grammy nomination); Allison kept one foot in the DIY punk world with Swearin’, and after that band broke up (and briefly reunited), she found a second career in A&R at a record label. But it’s been a long time since the two have collaborated on new music. So when a couple weeks ago, the sisters—now 36—posted identical posed photos on their social media accounts (then, video clips of the two of them hanging out and playing music) the prospect of their reunion felt quietly thrilling.