We begin Amnesty Week with a country-rock selection recommended by Jonathan Bradley…
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[7.11]
Thomas Inskeep: Finally, a Lucinda Williams record I can get down with. Reminiscent of early-’80s Carlene Carter, Loveless makes tough, hard country, led by her honeyed whiskey-drinking voice. She sings smart lyrics about people who really exist, about you and me in a Midwestern bar. Another antecedent: this is the record Lone Justice always wanted to make. I’m glad it finally exists, 30 years later.
[7]
Brad Shoup: One of this year’s small pleasures was learning that a segment of Music Twitter remembers Lone Justice fondly. Loveless is a bit more acrid than Maria McKee, but this is one hell of a showcase. She fires sour darts over the “I Will Follow Him” melody, transposed to guitar. The rhythm section leans back, and she just pokes a big ol’ bruise.
[8]
Jonathan Bradley: “To Love Somebody” is a song that aches with ambivalence. “What does it mean to love somebody?” Loveless opens. “Or at least hope they’ll be around?” — as if the two sentiments were equivalent. The arrangement is a drunk alt-country grind, prickling uncomfortably: teardrops on a pedal-steel guitar. I’d spent half the year listening to this before I found out the singer was 24, younger than Taylor Swift; she sounds like she should have a decade on her. “It feels like I’m gonna die if I can’t talk to you,” she lusts, but it’s a restless and melancholic lust, less about the object of the song and more about a nagging loneliness that companionship won’t satisfy. “I want to be on your mind,” is the closest the lyric gets to a resolution; her open wound isn’t only a euphemistic one.
[10]
Sonia Yang: The first time I heard Somewhere Else, I was stuck in morning commute traffic trying not to fall asleep, so it probably didn’t leave the best impression on me. This, however, was the one song that shook me out of my stupor and had me paying close attention. The lyrics talk about wanting somebody, being afraid of having that love reciprocated, and being unable to stop thinking about it all. There’s a loose, raw quality about the vocals, as if she’s lamenting while drunk and her guard is completely down, and it makes the emotional impact greater.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: The music shambles along, all swagger and confidence. But Lydia Loveless’s singing conveys something far more conflicted, a mix of longing and big-question pondering (“what’s it mean to love someone?”). It reminds me a bit of Jason Molina, whose voice could similarly draw out words and give them a whole new feel. But she’s on her own thing here, and “To Love Somebody” believes in itself even if it doesn’t have the answers for anything else.
[7]
Anthony Easton: I have seen her on both top songs of the year in country and in rock and roll. Without the nostalgia for a time that never existed, her voice veers towards pure rockabilly. I think I would prefer it a bit more with more varied instrumentation, but there is an elegance to her heartbreak, and the questions seem genuine without being earnest.
[6]
Juana Giaimo: Like its lyrics, “To Love Somebody” is always moving in the same place, going round and round without getting nowhere. Lydia Loveless’s voice sounds honest in the beginning, but maybe it’s a little bit too dramatic for such cheesy lyrics.
[5]
Josh Langhoff: When she rounds the tops of her phrases she could be Neko Case, but Loveless doesn’t sound so hellbent on enunciatin’. Her words afford her less pleasure than the variety of shapes and sounds her mouth can form. “Honey, let me melt your mouth tonight,” she pleads, stretched out syllables and guitar mantra attaining some nirvana of desperation.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Not the Bee Gees classic: a cruncher drenched in Mellencamp and the Replacements, sung and played by an artist who works at romantic frustrations like she strums her guitar. In other words, tougher than Lone Justice.
[7]