Silences

Album / Artist: Silences / Adia Victoria
Label: Canvasback/ATL

Reviewed: 10/12/2019
DJ Stace

General Comments / Release Notes
Swampy, dark, bluesy, sometimes trip-hoppy, but sort of hard to shoehorn into a category. Great vocals and vocal stylings. Everything from Angel Olsen to CocoRosie and Tricky, come to mind.

From NPR:
“The singer, songwriter, guitarist and poet Adia Victoria has named (Flannery) O’Connor, (Fiona) Apple and (Nina) Simone among her many sources of literary and musical inspiration. But she’s spent the last several years refining her own approach to such expression while redefining what it means to be a Southern blueswoman; for her, that’s a wily, radical and thoroughly contemporary role.”I wanted to put the fangs back into the blues,“she told an interviewer a while back.”In my opinion, it’s the original punk music. It was people singing songs about messages that they couldn’t speak because they’d be killed.“”

FCCs: 2 (Warning),8

RIYL: CocoRosie, PJ Harvey, Angel Olsen

Play: All, but 8. Rated with *****

Tracks:
1. **** “Clean” 1:53 - Midtempo, with plucked strings. Sweet melody juxtaposed against uncomfortable lyrics.
2. **** “Bring Her Back” 3:15 - LANGUAGE WARNING NOT FCC, but contains the N-word so be forewarned. Slow, slinky, angry. Acoustic blues guitar accompaniment. Trip-hoppy rhythms. Builds to cacophony.
3. *** “Pacolet Road” 3:08 - Uptempo rocker, with breathy vocals. Good song, but not as challenging than other tracks on the album. Single material.
4. **** “The City” 3:18 - Cool Bad Seeds keyboard with pitter-pat rhythm and warbly breathy vocals. Cool sound.
5. ***** “Different Kind Of Love” 3:24 - Uptempo “Boom Chikka Boom Chik” rhythm with Victoria’s breathy, but dark vocals punctuated by interludes of sax and broody twanging guitar. Marc Ribot style fuzzy guitar solo. Killer.
6. ***** “Devil Is A Lie” 4:28 - Midtempo punchy strings and V’s lilting talk singing vocals dancing over highhat and drumroll. Lazy, fuzzed and wah’d guitars join halfway through. Nice bass fade out.
7. “The Needle’s Eye” 3:33 - More driving, midtempo trip-hoppy rhythm.
8. FCC “Cry Wolf” 4:16 FCC “FUCK IT” - Slightly psychedelic sounding keyboards, great lyrics, but the FCC is there. Great building intensity.
9. ***** “Heathen” 3:25 - Midtempo and slinky head bobber, with droms and vocals out front with brass underneath until the end, when it goes all NOLA. Great rhythm. A bit of a growl in the vocals.
10. “Nice Folks” 4:11 - Reminds a bit of Portishead, here. Midtempo, with another great drum groove right out front.
11. ***** “Dope Queen Blues” 3:06 Killer song. Mid to uptempo, Cool and slinky bass drum and piano. Great rhythms, remind me a bit of old Foetus recordings. V’s vocal stylings are punchy and weepy, simultaneously. Really cool. Great sax. With fangs.
12. ***** “Get Lonely” 4:18 Low thumping midtempo heartbeat rhythm. Breathy, beautiful bluesy vocal styling. Quiet, but surrounding crescendos to strings at the end. Tricky’s “Pre-Millenium Tension” comes to mind. great ending track. Would mix well with Angel Olsen.