Echo and Empathy
From the instant Lynne’s unaccompanied vocal starts Paper Van Gogh – yes, just those 6
seconds – you know this will be a sublime song, as will the whole album.
Obviously, this judgement is born of past experience and expectation, but it is
also born of the hearing in that moment.
This opening song is soon filled out with acoustic guitar
and then a gospel-esque choir in support, and it is a pretty melody. Next Back Door Front Porch is more familiar
in that expectation, a sultry edge to the tone and the harmony, then the back door, front porch, window chorus
asserts its simple but potent presence, more drawling harmonising to follow. When
the chorus is next sung it is echoed quickly after each third, and the slide
guitar adds atmosphere; the third time the chorus is repeated the accompanying
vocals pick up a more obvious singsong echo. This ‘style’ will be found again.
Third Sold the Devil
[Sunshine] is a funky one. Next Son
of a Gun is bluesy, acoustic guitar and piano providing a simple backdrop
over which a synth adds sweet tones, and complex vocal harmonies layer parts of
the chorus. Fifth Down Here is a
punchier swampblues with punchier guitar bursts, and then more sustained guitar
and organ as it rises to its rock anthem out
in the country line, that line getting the repeat echo I mentioned earlier,
establishing a style, establishing another expectation.
Next Love is Strong,
co-written with Ron Sexsmith, continues the bluesy mood/mode, and Lynne’s vocal
continues in its sultry strength, self-harmonising adding resonating depths to
its tone. Seventh Better is typical
Lynne territory, voice and vocal harmony adding emotion, the male voice,
echoing lines again, added along with rising orchestration to push these peaks.
Eighth Be in the Now is another
Sexsmith assist with a genuinely catchy Never
mind the rain/It only means to show you how hook. Penultimate track Following You begins with plucked banjo
and a piercing squeal before the Gentry-esque guitar and southern soul melody are
carried on more harmonising.
The album closes on the title track, a pedal-steel Country
start, before the simple but beautiful descending melody is introduced. A
country blues that soothes in its ironic empathy [recall the title] for another’s sadness; soothes
in the sound of that glorious vocal.
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