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Letitia VanSant’s previous solo albums have been very much of an Americana persuasion, taking in bluegrass, gospel and blues. Still, Eye of the Storm, her first duo collaboration with long-time associate David McKindley-Ward, leans much more into his acoustic folk sensibilities, even including a fine drone-backed version of the 17th century shanty traditional Lowlands (Away), his only lead vocal on the album. Two further traditional tracks are included: the guitar instrumental Queen Of The Earth, Child Of The Skies, a refashioning of the Irish air The Blackbird arranged by West Virginia fiddler Eddon Hammons in 1947, and a strummed duet on traditional American cowboy song Old Paint that calls Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings to mind.
The remaining numbers are all self-penned, opening in musically sparse form with the six-minute title track and its lyric of emerging from a period of mental turmoil through the support of a friend or lover (“You turned me from the gates of Hell/Freed me from an unlocked cell…I leave/The worst of it behind me/The ever-present grinding in my mind/I leave/The shroud that so defined me/The tethers that confined me/Far behind”) and the belief that “I’m worn smooth by the flow/And I know no matter how the winds will blow/Or burdensome the heavy load/I have learned the center still will hold”,
With fingerpicked acoustic and electric chimes, When You’re Older is one of those hindsight reflections on your younger gawky self (“Standing in the doorway wondering where to sit/I grab a drink, I check my phone/Excuse myself to the hall alone/Why do I always wish I’d stayed at home/In the middle of a crowded room”) and while “they tell you when you’re older you will have this figured out”, those anxieties don’t vanish (“I know my truth, I know my worth/But that don’t make it easier/To walk into a room like I deserve/A moment of your attention”).
The musically ruminative Believer is another self-examining number. But this time with a sense of liberation (“Your heavy nature you’ve carried thus far/But some of your burden can hang from the stars/Brush the eyelash from your sweet face/A fingertip touch and you blow it away/I can’t bear to watch good wishes go to waste/Give me humor, give me grace…What some call a wives’ tale has wisdom at times/The flip of a coin, the roll of the dice”).
Equally stripped back and contemplative, the airily sung Crimson speaks to anxiety about not wanting to ruin a relationship before it begins, couched in imagery that conjures watching wildlife (“One glimmer of crimson glints through the gray/I’m still as a stone and I’m barely breathing/And I try as hard as I might not to scare you away/I cling to the earth and make myself heavy/Just one careless move would lay my heart bare/So I live in the hope that you will come closer/But you might just disappear into thin air”).
Three equally restrained and meditative numbers bring things to a close. First up, the repeated fingerpicked chords of the folksy Appalachian Half-Empty Cups echoes that same notion (“Said too much in a breathless rush/And scared her away”) with an overlay of mental fragility (“Half-empty cups/Calling your bluff/She was right, you never put them away…Can’t seem to hold onto the days… Sand and mud, sweat and blood haven’t set you free”). Then, with drone base, Tall Trees carries a portentous dread in its nature imagery (“There were signs it was coming, though we did not see… We awoke to a sunlight so naked and harsh/The roots like a wound and the hole a great scar/How I took for granted its shelter and shade”) but ends on the hope of renewal (“Sometimes it scares me that wide open sky/But then I see the saplings all reaching so high/When tall trees fall”). And finally, with hand percussion on guitar, fingerpicked dancing notes and high harmonies, there’s Ashes and a bittersweet, almost hymnal-like song of loss and not letting go (“Though I’ve scattered your ashes/And you’ve returned to dust/I cannot part with your love …from thousands of stars in the sky/Your constellation reflected in my eyes”) but also the resolution not to drown in those waters (“I know I must keep breathing/And I know I must come back up”). Subtly understated in its melodies and delivery but with a profound depth of emotion, it’s a deeply involved album that sings to their musical chemistry and makes you wonder why it took so long to take shape and hope that it marks just the start of the journey.
Eye of the Storm (UK Release date – 22nd November 2024) Self Released
Bandcamp: https://letitiavansant.bandcamp.com/album/eye-of-the-storm
