Gregory Robson
07/10/09, 07:49 AM
Jenee Halstead - The River Grace
Record Label: Self-released
Release Date: June 3, 2008
The amazing power of an arresting voice and simple instrumentation knows no limits. Throughout the annals of music history there is a laundry list of inspired, folk-poets who seem to have an inherent and incurable ability to weave spirited stories through just a voice, an acoustic guitar and deft instrumentation. Boston-based singer/songwriter Jenee Halstead has that aura of legacy on her debut record The River Grace. Raised in the Inland Empire of the Pacific Northwest, Halstead moved to Boston in 2006 in an effort to flee a wrecked romance and to join the ranks of the city's vaulted singer/songwriter/folk scene.
The musical landscape of The River Grace is muted, tame and calm. Don't expect anything flashy or uplifting. Everything is delicate, balanced and intricate. The album opens with the introspective "Before I Go," and establishes the mood from the very start. As an opener it's not entirely inspiring but rather dark and hollow and sets the course for the imminent adventure, which is both bumpy and unfailingly honest. Second track "Deep Dark Sea," is the kind of song whose simple audacity can reverberate around rooms and penetrate hearts for days. When she sings, "March out of the water, rowing oars that heave and falter, giving into the crash of a wave, seals to serenade the brightly beating wings of a seagulls’ parade, if anyone asks me, this is where I’ll be," it's hard to turn away or not pay attention.
More to it than that, the song seems to come from a place that reveals the story may indeed be based on fact. There's a guttural pull and lure that seems too hard to fake. Title track "The River Grace," seems to go after the same things as its predecessor but in a slightly more inspired manner. "Nick Drake," never once mentions the ill-fated British singer/songwriter, but the song's steely chilliness resounds with the trappings of his craft, most especially when she sings, ""How do you dance all night, when your heart won't feel the rhythm, your feet won't take to flight? "How do you put meaning into something that is not there? I'm so lonely now I just don't care."
Easily the album's best song, "Darkest Day," is a daring, percipient and unconquerable murder ballad that penetrates, probes and pushes the listener to feel tenderness and sincerity despite the protagonist's undeniable transgressions. Hard to argue with lyrics like, "We were drunk and high, doing 95 past a cop, so blown we didn’t see, by the time the chase was underway, one had turned to three, you met my eye, patted your 45 and said they ain't never gonna get me." Building on that sense of disappointment is the forlorn "Drunkard's Lullabye," in which a farmer's wife concedes that despite his weaknesses, her husband is still her man, "I married you, cause you're a good man, but the devil has his eye on you." She follows that up with "Dusty Rose," a Texas-inspired country song that has the same kind of magnetism of June Carter Cash, and in some ways even hearkens back to Depression-era balladry.
"Reach Up," features the same kind of bittersweet optimism as that of Dave Matthew's "Gravedigger," as she sings, "Reach up to the sky, so you know how heaven feels, when you die." The song's stark tone is comparable to the album's earlier songs and doesn't do much in the way of orchestration, but sure does pack an emotional wallop. The album's final two tracks, "Skipping Stones," and "St. Peter," offer the listener two wholly different sentiments and reveal the kind of power this simple disc has. On "Stones," Halstead sings of optimism and inner tenacity despite the mountainous obstacles that can often stand in the way, "One skip for the hardship, two skips for the troubles, three skips for the worries, four skips and their gone." On "Saint Peter," she sings of accepting a lover's fate and discerning the true err of his ways, "Are you soon expecting to greet the dead? With a hole in your heart and thorns on your head."
In just ten songs, Halstead manages to say and do so much, in ways few other artists can. Her spirit and her voice reveal a singer/songwriter who seems to have been around the block many times before and has both a voice and stories that are wise beyond her years. These are the kind of songs that send artists to legendary status and place themselves in museums. That this is just her debut is remarkable. Her tender alto has the same tenderness and sensitivity that folk stalwarts Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris and Shawn Colvin have worn to prominence and that future seems almost certain for Halstead. Though the album was released in the spring of 2008, Halstead is still touring in support of the album and it's a disc that certainly demands wider acclaim. Already at work on an EP due out later this year, Halstead is also at work with the Boston-based band The Broken Blossoms.
Producer Evan Brubaker, who founded Seattle's Cake Records is a talented musician, who has a great ear for talent and seems to know what to do behind the knobs. The few touches he puts on the album are very akin to the simple elegance lauded producer Rick Rubin often puts on his singer/songwriter projects. The songs on The River Grace are atmospheric, incisive, perceptive and timeless. He doesn't add any bells and whistles, instead he lets Halstead sing her songs and tell her stories, and man is it something. For all intents and purposes, The River Grace is a poor man's Wrecking Ball, an album as good as Patty Griffin's Living With Ghosts, and as transcendent as Dar William's The Honesty Room. Spellbinding and seductive, The River Grace is an album that understands the human condition and recognizes the inherent frailty in all of us. If only all albums could do such things.
1. Before I Go
2. Deep Dark Sea
3. River Grace
4. Nick Drake
5. Darkest Day
6. Drunkard's Lullaby
7. Dusty Rose
8. Reach Up
9. Skipping Stones
10. St. Peter
Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Joni Mitchell and Gillian Welch.
Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/jeneehalstead)
Website (http://www.jeneehalstead.com)
Record Label: Self-released
Release Date: June 3, 2008
The amazing power of an arresting voice and simple instrumentation knows no limits. Throughout the annals of music history there is a laundry list of inspired, folk-poets who seem to have an inherent and incurable ability to weave spirited stories through just a voice, an acoustic guitar and deft instrumentation. Boston-based singer/songwriter Jenee Halstead has that aura of legacy on her debut record The River Grace. Raised in the Inland Empire of the Pacific Northwest, Halstead moved to Boston in 2006 in an effort to flee a wrecked romance and to join the ranks of the city's vaulted singer/songwriter/folk scene.
The musical landscape of The River Grace is muted, tame and calm. Don't expect anything flashy or uplifting. Everything is delicate, balanced and intricate. The album opens with the introspective "Before I Go," and establishes the mood from the very start. As an opener it's not entirely inspiring but rather dark and hollow and sets the course for the imminent adventure, which is both bumpy and unfailingly honest. Second track "Deep Dark Sea," is the kind of song whose simple audacity can reverberate around rooms and penetrate hearts for days. When she sings, "March out of the water, rowing oars that heave and falter, giving into the crash of a wave, seals to serenade the brightly beating wings of a seagulls’ parade, if anyone asks me, this is where I’ll be," it's hard to turn away or not pay attention.
More to it than that, the song seems to come from a place that reveals the story may indeed be based on fact. There's a guttural pull and lure that seems too hard to fake. Title track "The River Grace," seems to go after the same things as its predecessor but in a slightly more inspired manner. "Nick Drake," never once mentions the ill-fated British singer/songwriter, but the song's steely chilliness resounds with the trappings of his craft, most especially when she sings, ""How do you dance all night, when your heart won't feel the rhythm, your feet won't take to flight? "How do you put meaning into something that is not there? I'm so lonely now I just don't care."
Easily the album's best song, "Darkest Day," is a daring, percipient and unconquerable murder ballad that penetrates, probes and pushes the listener to feel tenderness and sincerity despite the protagonist's undeniable transgressions. Hard to argue with lyrics like, "We were drunk and high, doing 95 past a cop, so blown we didn’t see, by the time the chase was underway, one had turned to three, you met my eye, patted your 45 and said they ain't never gonna get me." Building on that sense of disappointment is the forlorn "Drunkard's Lullabye," in which a farmer's wife concedes that despite his weaknesses, her husband is still her man, "I married you, cause you're a good man, but the devil has his eye on you." She follows that up with "Dusty Rose," a Texas-inspired country song that has the same kind of magnetism of June Carter Cash, and in some ways even hearkens back to Depression-era balladry.
"Reach Up," features the same kind of bittersweet optimism as that of Dave Matthew's "Gravedigger," as she sings, "Reach up to the sky, so you know how heaven feels, when you die." The song's stark tone is comparable to the album's earlier songs and doesn't do much in the way of orchestration, but sure does pack an emotional wallop. The album's final two tracks, "Skipping Stones," and "St. Peter," offer the listener two wholly different sentiments and reveal the kind of power this simple disc has. On "Stones," Halstead sings of optimism and inner tenacity despite the mountainous obstacles that can often stand in the way, "One skip for the hardship, two skips for the troubles, three skips for the worries, four skips and their gone." On "Saint Peter," she sings of accepting a lover's fate and discerning the true err of his ways, "Are you soon expecting to greet the dead? With a hole in your heart and thorns on your head."
In just ten songs, Halstead manages to say and do so much, in ways few other artists can. Her spirit and her voice reveal a singer/songwriter who seems to have been around the block many times before and has both a voice and stories that are wise beyond her years. These are the kind of songs that send artists to legendary status and place themselves in museums. That this is just her debut is remarkable. Her tender alto has the same tenderness and sensitivity that folk stalwarts Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris and Shawn Colvin have worn to prominence and that future seems almost certain for Halstead. Though the album was released in the spring of 2008, Halstead is still touring in support of the album and it's a disc that certainly demands wider acclaim. Already at work on an EP due out later this year, Halstead is also at work with the Boston-based band The Broken Blossoms.
Producer Evan Brubaker, who founded Seattle's Cake Records is a talented musician, who has a great ear for talent and seems to know what to do behind the knobs. The few touches he puts on the album are very akin to the simple elegance lauded producer Rick Rubin often puts on his singer/songwriter projects. The songs on The River Grace are atmospheric, incisive, perceptive and timeless. He doesn't add any bells and whistles, instead he lets Halstead sing her songs and tell her stories, and man is it something. For all intents and purposes, The River Grace is a poor man's Wrecking Ball, an album as good as Patty Griffin's Living With Ghosts, and as transcendent as Dar William's The Honesty Room. Spellbinding and seductive, The River Grace is an album that understands the human condition and recognizes the inherent frailty in all of us. If only all albums could do such things.
1. Before I Go
2. Deep Dark Sea
3. River Grace
4. Nick Drake
5. Darkest Day
6. Drunkard's Lullaby
7. Dusty Rose
8. Reach Up
9. Skipping Stones
10. St. Peter
Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Joni Mitchell and Gillian Welch.
Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/jeneehalstead)
Website (http://www.jeneehalstead.com)