Lauren will freely admit
that much of Wildfire is influenced by a previous relationship – and some other
encounters. Its not a tale of woe or a
love/love is gone album, the songs are honest reflections on what went wrong
and what could have gone differently.
The album opens with the
upbeat Tennessee Tonight – not a relationship song as such, but about
her relationship with country music and the spiritual home – Tennessee. It’s a great first track, showing both
Lauren’s voice and the instrumentation that underpins the whole album, with
this track including some honky-tonk piano
From here we get into the other
messages of the album. The Other Side opens with a steel guitar which
neatly sets the mood of sadness but also her personal strength – also reflected
in Coffee, in which Lauren has a real edge to her vocals. It too is an
end of the relationship song, and you can tell it wasn’t her choice – but her
mind is sure made up. The title track Wildfire picks up on a similar
theme, the tale of a relationship
that has burned brightly but now burned out, but rather than sounding bitter,
Lauren sings this as someone who is accepting the reality and is moving on
The
album stays on theme and on style all the way through with a combination of
Lauren’s beautiful voice and the subtle, but well played instruments – guitar,
keys, steel and drums
Its
not all failed or ended relationships! If
I Was Whiskey is a song of considering love – fabulous slow paced,
picking banjo giving a lovely tick-tock feel under the drums and vocal; Boots
At The Back Door Back takes us back to
loud instrumentation with a nice guitar solo over light vocals – nice reversal
there! A brief affair – or maybe this is something more. We’ll have to see when the sun comes up – and
be relaxed about what might happen. It is quite bright and breezy, and the soft
ending leaves the possibilities hanging…. Dance With Me opens very
upbeat, a new relationship, two people realising that they want to be together,
to “dance” and that you need to shake off the past and see what’s in front of
you. Clever use of tempo changes match the pace of the song to the pace of the
relationship.
This album demonstrates Lauren’s
song writing ability – these are very well-crafted songs – and also her
maturity in looking back over the past but looking forward to her own
future. Hurricane with its
introspective lyrics “I’ll be strong and I’ll be weak”; I Run To You
with the realisation that sometimes the one you turn to when you need help is not
always going to be there – but you wish they were; and Half a Heart which
seems to sum up all that is good and bad in love. If you buy the physical CD you will get a
bonus acoustic version of this track which rounds off the album very well with
its short phrasing, piano and emotive strings arrangement
Overall
a fascinating album, ably showcasing Laurens obvious talent as a performer and
a storyteller
Wildfire, the new album from Lauren Jane is available to stream and download from 24 April.
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