Continental Song City
The PJ Harvey of Americana.
When Jenee Halstead left for home at the end of April 2011 to write and record her new album, after having been in The Netherlands for five weeks, I urged her that it would be no bad thing for her to try to give her music even more depth and personality. More than any folk or Americana album PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake seemed to be the beacon she was looking towards for the kind of musical innovation she was striving for. That she was able, in close cooperation with producer Evan Brubaker, to deliver such a brilliant result as Raised by Wolves totally surpassed my expectations, for in a completely unique style, incomparable to anything else, Halstead takes us to a world filled with sensuality, heartbreak and longing, in which Americana is just one of the pillars on which her songs rest, even though in the end it might just be the most defining one. That Jenee writes exceptionally well-crafted songs, not in the least because of their apparent simplicity and timelessness, was already clear from her debut-cd The River Grace of 2008 and the following Hollow Bones ep of 2010, records that were released over here in that last year as one cd, and is again a principal feature of Raised By Wolves. Where those earlier records each embodied a clear style, folk/Americana for The River Grace, alt.country for Hollow Bones, Raised By Wolves follows much more of a unique course, that although largely filled in with roots instruments like banjo, ukulele and guitar, is almost always based around a tight mechanical rhythm that, even though it mostly isn’t too much in your face, gives the largely very beautiful and varied songs, a quite dark indie feel that we’ve never really heard like that before. In her singing Halstead has also begun to vary much more. On The River Grace she was championed universally for the Patty Griffin/Shawn Colvin/Emmylou Harris-like qualities of her voice, but on Raised By Wolves she hardly reminds one of any of these three singers and sounds both a lot more sensual and more affecting. On some of the highlights of the album, like Garden Of Love and the incredibly beautiful title track, she even dares to focus on the higher register of her voice to convey a tenderness that is breathtaking in its poignancy. And so almost every song on this gorgeous and daring album has something special to it that makes it totally unique. Where most Americana mainy looks back to the past, Jenee Halstead has the courage to direct her view forwards, with magnificent results. It’s the kind of guts that make her the PJ Harvey of Americana.
****1/2 Pieter Wijnstekers
