CD Odyssey Disc 949: Kasey Chambers

After a lot of late nights at work I’m starting to feel a bit worn down and looking forward to some extended time off. We’re not there yet, so I’m going to write this review and then spend the rest of the night chilling out, or to quote Leonard Cohen “getting lost in that hopeless little screen.”

Disc 949 is….Bittersweet

Artist: Kasey Chambers

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? I’m not sure. Kasey Chambers looking happy? Sad? Bittersweet? The outstretched arms are throwing me off for sure. Is she doing the Don Cherry? Telling a fishing story? About to pull the blinds? We just don’t know.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of this album on the avclub where they gave it an A-. I liked how it sounded and a few clips on Youtube later and I decided to take the plunge.

How It Stacks Up:  Kasey Chambers has been at this music thing a lot longer than I’ve known her, and has ten studio albums to her credit. However, I just have this one so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 3 stars

Is “Bittersweet” a pop record with a country flavour or a country record with a pop flavour? I guess when you can’t tell it doesn’t matter. Fortunately, while this is a dangerous line to straddle, Chambers manages to avoid that corporate Nashville country sound and stays true to her own voice.

The album has folk and blues elements as well, and I found myself thinking of fellow genre busters Lindi Ortega and Patty Griffin. Chambers’ voice has similarities to both of those women as well, although she doesn’t quite manage the same level of sultry playfulness that Ortega does, or the sheer power and range Griffin can draw on.

There are also times when Chambers’ voice has a baby-talk quality that felt a bit too cute, and I liked her better when she belts it out with some force, as she does on “Oh Grace” or the title track. When she is at her best her voice is distinctive, with a lovely rasp and a bit of sweetness around the edges, like caramelized sugar.

The pop elements of the songs are a lot better than anything you’ll hear on mainstream radio, and songs like “I Would Do” could easily be a hit if they were glitzed and glammed up with modern production tricks (i.e. ruined). Fortunately Chambers and producer Nick DiDia resist the temptation and opt for quality. By the way, if you don’t know him already, Google Nick Didia, because this guy is responsible for a truckload of massive albums over the years.

Chambers also shows a fun side with the hilariously troubling “Stalker” which begins:

“I would wear a locket around my neck

With a drop of your blood in it

And show all my friends if I had one

I would stand outside your window

Peeking in while it was dark

And the dogs down the street are howling.”

This should all be very frightening if it weren’t for the up tempo and frantically energetic delivery. Actually, that makes it a bit more frightening, but with a chorus of “can I be, can I be, can I be your stalker?” at least she’s asking politely, if a bit insistently.

Chambers writes all her own songs, which is something I always appreciate, and the range she shows is impressive from rocking tracks like “Wheelbarrow” to evocative folk duets like the title track (sung beautifully by both her and fellow Aussie singer-songwriter Bernard Fanning).

Thematically, the album asks a lot of questions around faith, including a Joan Osbourne-like song with “Is God Real?” Tracks like “Heaven or Hell” imply she thinks there is going to be some form of judgment, although it isn’t clear what. On “Christmas Day” Chambers brings some modern sensibilities to the story of Mary and Joseph. Mary claims it was the Holy Ghost, Joseph claims he believes her and Kasey Chambers…withholds judgment on the whole thing, while focusing the story on the two parents for a change.

Wherever you land on these bigger questions, it is clear that Chambers wants to explore the issues and isn’t in a rush to judgment on who’s right. Because really, this album is more about the choices we make on earth than what happens after.  “Too Late To Save Me” and “I’m Alive” are songs about characters recounting bad choices they’ve made in life. The first resorts to despair, the second revels in the fact that they survived. It’s all perspective, and exploring those perspectives makes the record more interesting on second and third listens.

I might have rocked the rock songs a bit harder, and put more folk and less pop into the country songs, but the bones of the tracks are good, and their core comes from a place of truth and understanding.

There is a lot of good stuff going on with “Bittersweet” and I feel it is just a few turns here and there from greatness.

Best tracks: Oh Grace, Stalker, Heaven or Hell, Bittersweet, Too Late to Save Me, I’m Alive