A recent album release from Emily Fenton delivers a wonderfully inventive and honest mix of Americana, folk, and this descriptive lyrical approach that really lets you paint these vivid pictures in your head as you're listening and the whole thing is delivered with massive character and personality so that you get attached right away.
The Hello, from Planet Earth album is packed with this persona that is laid down in front of you to take in how you will but with each song you get a little bit of a different piece of the artist herself and I think that is part of where the brilliance of this record actually comes in.
With Emily, her honesty is blunt and very straightforward but again, super detailed and descriptive so that you know what she was thinking while she was doing something and the whole album comes off almost like reading a book where each song serves almost like a chapter in her life.
This is one of the many reasons why I feel like you should be listening to this entire album as a whole as opposed to just a few songs.
Yes, there are some songs here that would work amazing as singles and stand on their own two feet incredibly well however, having said that, listening to the whole album you get so much more to soak in not only musically but in terms of that character and persona as well and that's why you end up getting pulled into this record in the first place.
This record has a combination of acoustic and electric guitar with live percussion and base but it's those vocals that really hook you because she's got this almost jazz and soul tone and vibrato to her which at times makes me think of artists like Andy DiFranco for example.
The soul is just oozing out of this whole record and it's so colorful as well, especially in its performance and how the energy feels like it was recorded live in its own way.
There's just such a natural flow to this album and some surprises around the corners along with some great musical hooks played on guitar most of the time which is something that I've missed in a lot of different music.
There's always gray courses which this album has and a lot of vocal hooks which this album also has, however, I've missed musical hooks.
This record has these guitar lines here and there that stick in your brain just as much as some of the vocals do.
This is another thing. A lot of these songs have a funny way of bouncing around in your head for hours or even days after the songs have ended and the only way to see that is to listen to them again.
This was more like reading someone's diary than just listening to an album.
You get glimpses of who Emily is as a human being and I think that's something a lot of artists don't deliver as much of anymore while Emily does it with fewer boundaries than what you may be used to.
I definitely adore the sort of attitude she has vocally on top of this softer tonality musically.
This combination makes such a well-balanced dynamic feel for the whole record that it has ways of just engulfing you and then in the end you get sort of washed away with it all.
This was a little bit of an escape for me and I got to leave where I was and listen to someone else's life for a little bit and I haven't been able to do that for quite some time so this record was massively refreshing.
It's been a long time since I've heard a record that delivered this much personality in one shot.
Listen to this album as soon as you can and in my opinion, you do it with headphones on because it's one of the best ways to really soak everything in.
You don't want to miss any lyrics even though it's hard to miss because they're again, very blunt and right in your face, descriptive and detailed.
This album gets a 9 out of 10 straight up.