Thursday, April 23, 2020

Album Review - Wildfire - Lauren Jane



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.

Find and follow Lauren on  facebook and her website


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