Oozing style and sophistication, the smoky, velvety-voiced American singer-songwriter returns with a follow-up her 2018 debut, Shades, with a sublime set of vivid, poetic, atmospheric songs, laced with a Nashville-recorded country, folk and ghostly, theatrical twang, and influences from Tom Waits to Dvořák. Of the latter, than includes New World Symphony - the composer’s exploration of American history and landscapes, to the rattling percussion and fuzzy guitar of 80s-era Waits. “Time is warm, dark circle,” she sings on the catchy, powerful The Line, a song that builds and builds. Opener Bad idea is a gorgeous. sprightly acoustic waltz-time decorated with orchestral strings, guitars and sense of creeping tragedy, which also comes in Bird House (“Lady took the silence to mean nobody loved her”), and continues onwards, particularly the beautifully bittersweet and but cutting Desire Path (“Piss on my back and tell me it’s rain”). Sola has a powerful, poetic presence that’s not unlike that of Lana Del Rey. All the way through the album to the final song, Instrument of War, she has an almost incomparable mature poise and subtle restraint, hitting you occasionally with poignant, killer lines. At the end song then, an extended military metaphor of tragic love and seething revenge, her voice simmers, warbles and reverberates, culminating in the final irony of the album’s title with “a woman built for war”. Glamorous poet, voice artist and songwriter, she’s truly a class act. Out on Spectraphonic Records / City Slang.
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