"Why does this one mean more? Why does that one mean less?" asked Kurt Wagner in the sublime Lambchop song 'Gettysburg Address'.
These are questions that you might well ask in relation to Barbara Nesbitt.
On the face of it, there is no good reason why she should have to self release an album of this quality when there are plenty of lesser artists who get snapped up by major labels.
One advantage is that the record has been made on her own terms and therefore reflects her feisty, independent character.
"I'm a fighter when I really know what I need" she sings on When Summer Is Over and the way she belts out these words you'd be a fool to argue.
In a brief bio we learn that she is a native of Georgia who ran away from a broken home at 15 and navigated to San Diego. The morbid fear of fading away in a small town is touched upon in her song, When You Go.
The Bees is her second album, a follow up A Million Stories, and contains thirteen country pop-rock love songs dominated by themes of identity and fidelity.
The tunes tend to sound a bit samey but nevertheless show that she has a distinctive voice and a talent for 'heart on the sleeve' song writing.
Her voice reminds me a lot of Lone Justice's Maria McKee, particularly at her most heartbroken and mournful on tracks like Good For Something or Give In.
|
A weakness of the album is the largely unimaginative 'twang by numbers' backing which doesn't do justice to most the songs. Take the title track, for example, in which she sings of being ground down by the noise in her head and finding it hard to summon up the strength to go on. The jaunty fiddle playing that accompanies these sentiments is starkly at odds with mood of the song.
The contrast between words and music is even more pronounced on Losin' Time where the upbeat backing has nothing whatsoever to do with the desperation she sings about ("I don't ever seem to win")
I suppose she would claim that the general message of her songs is meant to be affirmative but, on an otherwise fine album, more sensitive arrangements would have helped give a softer, more emotionally engaging overall tone.
Barbara Nesbitt's Website
|
