Search - Laura Veirs :: July Flame

Don K. from BEAVERTON, OR
Reviewed on 8/10/2014...

I'm only posting a review to say this: I can listen to this album over and over, and it never gets old. Laura Veirs' music takes me far away from the worries of the day. This is, by far, her best album. Don't pass it up.

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Inspired, dreamy, a breath of fresh air.

Adarsh Amin | 01/13/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Colorado-born and Portland-based artist's seventh album is a resultant breath of fresh air.

Conceived from a chance summer meeting with an unusual peach at a local farmer's market, which also spawned the album's name and title track, "July Flame" - a variety of peach- is a break from a self-proclaimed songwriting slump - and a welcome one at that.

The wistful songstress takes a more stripped-down approach compared with recent efforts, the mood erring toward the ripe and summery and the simple arrangements leaving plenty of spaces for her crystalline-as-mountain-air vocals to swoop and glide.

Here, instead of the fascination with water, which has coursed through all her albums since the beautiful "Carbon Glacier", it's the sun that dominates "July Flame".

Tracks such as "Sun Is King" and "Summer Is the Champion" speak poetically of that season's emotional thaw.

The album offers an airy, bucolic, for the most part drum-less, sound, effectively returning Veirs to the fingerpicking folk milieu that characterised her early records, showing a world of organic imagery where troubles "seep into the dirty ground". She may be midthirties, but "July Flame" sees Veirs' explore the emotions of a hazy mid-summer with wide-eyed youthfulness - most notably on the gloriously bright "Summer Is The Champion".

The title track, meanwhile, epitomises a long-shadowed July twilight.

The erstwhile geologist and inveterate nature lover is still packing her songs with floral, orological and riverine metaphors, but "July Flame" also finds her exploring new, more direct lyrical avenues, like the unabashed romanticism of "When You Give Your Heart" or the unequivocal "Carole Kaye" - the real curio of the set, an ingenuous tribute to Frank Zappa's session bassist that showcases Laura Veirs' humble-natured song writing, whilst also providing credentials for her own deserved reverence.

"Make Something Good", a rasping, piano and strings-ornamented duet with My Morning Jacket's Jim James, closes out the album.

The 13 tracks, recorded at Veirs's own home studio or 'the Barn' with new partner and long-time producer Tucker Martine, have such an unassuming, homespun quality that you're constantly surprised by how mesmerising is the tapestry of sounds and how expansive and richly textured the songs are.

My favourite tracks: "Make Something Good", "Carol Kaye", "Wide-Eyed" , "Legless", "July Flame' and " Summer Is the Champion".

Enjoy!

Carbon Glacier

Saltbreakers"

"Emerald Fields from Steer Manure"

Mark D. Prouse | Riverdale (Bronx), NY | 01/13/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's almost painful, how beautiful this new Laura Veirs CD is. With six albums now, and an EP (there was another, self-released title as well, currently out of print), it has become clear to me that the woman is not capable of creating anything less than captivating ... and she keeps getting better. JULY FLAME instantly became my favorite with the very first listen!



Now, for some, Laura Veirs' flat, girlish voice will be an acquired taste. It was for me; my initial exposure was her Carbon Glacier, a CD I bought based purely on reviews. I would not have given two cents for her singing ability - at first. But the songs crept under my skin, their organic yet chilly tones haunting me for weeks until I had to hear more. I ended up getting all of the Veirs' recordings I could get my hands on, and each one I picked up was a keeper.



The main reason, of course, given Laura's somewhat expressionless voice, is the quality of the songs, and the creativity of both her lyrics and the arrangements. On JULY FLAME, she has stripped back some of the heavy layers and most of the electronics of her last two albums, Year of Meteors and Saltbreakers, but this doesn't mean she has abandoned complexity. These songs are all intricate little symphonies with melodies that take unexpected turns and words that unfold like the pages of a book I can't put down. Veirs continues to use the natural world and the cosmos as the primary sources for her imagery, but she uses them to paint lovely portraits of people, herself, and of pure emotions. Her poetry can be challenging, using odd things like "steer manure" and a "stampeding buffalo" to describe impulses of the heart and spirit; stuff like "iron filings" and an "organ pipe" that one would not expect to find in a song lyric, and weaving it all into utterly gorgeous, dream-like stories of love, work, survival and death. One song, about a soldier killed in battle, is drawn from Rimbaud, and sits along side the rest of Veirs' wholly original poetry quite naturally. She lets the images do the talking, never preaching or lecturing, yet delivering potent messages just the same.



The instrumentation all through JULY FLAME is constantly interesting, with Laura's fine guitar and banjo playing, Eyvind Kang's viola, Steve Moore's keyboards, and Karl Blau's harmony vocals providing most of the base. Other instruments like saxophones, vibes, a thumb piano, clarinet, keyboards, upright bass, percussion, even a string quartet, are added here and there, but the overall sound is uncluttered and clean. This set is so excellent throughout, that it's hard to pick the best songs, but the standouts for me are "Sun is King," "I Can See Your Tracks," "Life Is Good Blues," "Silo Song," "Little Deschutes," "Summer Is The Champion," and the aptly titled closer, "Make Something Good." Yes, she did "make something good" -- all of these songs have something to say, something to give. In addition, Ms. Veirs' singing is better than ever; in fact, I don't think anyone, even with a better singing voice, would be able to improve upon these performances. There's a perfect meld of vocal, lyric writing and music here. Already, I can hardly wait for the next Laura Veirs project!"