A breakup record salted with hard-won wisdom, All Night Long ups the emotional ante for Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys’ barroom country ballads. The follow-up to 2020’s Late Night Essentials finds the Sydney band cradling Harnett’s poignant singing in classic hooks and lingering reverb. “Sidelines” echoes “Dreams”-era Fleetwood Mac while Harnett describes being perennially left out in a relationship, and elsewhere she approaches the pronounced melancholy of Mazzy Star and Patsy Cline. But not all of the lyrics are plucked from her personal life: Several tracks were penned on behalf of friends or family, including “Max’s Song” and lead single “Even Cowgirls Cry”. And while Harnett pulls no punches when dealing with the fallout of her seven-year relationship—opener “I’ll Get By” packs some especially pointed jabs—she’s just as hard on herself on “Only Dreaming” and “Waiting for Something”. All the while, her band’s warmly saturated backing keeps these songs from feeling overly downbeat. And when horns kick in during “Can’t Have It All”, this romantic post-mortem begins to feel more like a wake than a funeral.