The moral to be drawn from the ten songs on this album, and the title track in particular, is that learning to swim is a safer bet than waiting for your ship to come in. Or, to use the landlubber's metaphor of the opening track (Soul Fly Free), sometimes the back roads are more likely to take you where you need to go than the highways.
"Let your soul fly free, don't be afraid to move slowly", sings Alice Di Mele, an independent solo artist whose long career stands testimony to the truth of these words. To date, she has been performing for three decades and this is her 13th self-released album.
Recorded in a studio set within Oregon's Siskiyou mountain range, the album features numerous guests and backing musicians of whom Skip Edwards on Hammond organ and pedal steel does most to define the sound.
Di Micele deals with big topics like death (Inside) and her opposition to fracking (Old Life Back) with a striving for hope and freedom being the common denominator.
Her voice and style is not unlike Annabelle Chvostek although her songs are far less obviously politicised. Instead, what she calls the "organic acoustic groove" has more elements of soul, jazz and folk with a relaxed vibe that tends to neutralise any strong emotional content.
The tex-mex of When Jane Rides Scout is the liveliest tune but this is an exception to the laid back mood established by If I Could Move The World, a reworking of a song that appeared on her 1984 album Naked, and the closing track, Ripple, a Grateful Dead cover.
All told, the affirmative yet undemanding, songs are lacking in the X factor to transform them to anything more than pleasant easy listening.
