Some artists exist exclusively in their own world. Those whose sound is so entwined with who they are and what they represent that a single short passage of their music immediately plants you in their frame of reference. Tom Waits is one, Elliott Smith is another, and now so too, is Vera Sola.
On her debut record ‘Shades’ the Nashville based songwriter invited listeners into the new wild-west; a gothic, almost dystopian landscape that wore its Americana legacy on its sleeve. An entirely self-recorded affair it cast an eye on the unnerving aspects of life, longing and history.
For its follow up, Vera Sola has invited outsiders into the fold, working with a co-producer and multiple musicians to elevate her vision, all without losing the sound and feel that is still unmistakably hers. The fuller orchestration matches the grandeur of her voice well, and the slow build of opener ‘Bad Idea’ sounds like a train pulling into a long abandoned station, before Vera Sola is cast out the doors into a sun scorched wilderness.
‘Desire Path’ is a haunted waltz in an abandoned ballroom as Vera Sola – not for the only time on the record – wrestles with ghosts, both past and present. And elsewhere ‘Hands’ holds the irresistible quality of an early Nick Cave murder ballad.
On ‘Peacemaker,’ Vera Sola plays the part of a master puppeteer, as marionettes twist and twirl to her command. Like ‘Shades’ before it, the album has a theatricality that immerses you front and centre in the action. It’s not always comfortable, and the palpable desert sun that accompanies the off-kilter trajectory of many of the tracks can be close to stifling, but it is all part of the experience.
The record holds a conciliatory anger at a civilisation that can’t save itself from itself. And through an exploration of war, bloodspill, loss and confusion Vera Sola has continued to tell her story, and invite us into her arresting world.
8/10
Words: Craig Howieson
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