Review Summary: Morning’s comin’ soon
I think we’re drownin’ in the same mirage
One of the things I’ve always loved about music is that the very act of listening represents a balancing act - the artist and the listener meeting in the middle. A musician writes songs around themes informed by their experience, and then the listener filters those tunes through their own perspectives and states of mind. In the end, what the music “really means” is always a work in progress, something that every individual figures out for themselves. And, every now and again, the dedicated music fan finds an album which feels like it’s been made just for them.
Enter
The Ones That Stay, the latest full-length from Asheville, NC-based roots music purveyors Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters (yep, it’s a mouthful). It’s also, for the listener, exactly what I needed at this moment in time - a bunch of smooth and well-crafted country tunes which don’t lack for heartfelt and homespun feeling. Earnest and thoughtful songs pondering life and loss, change and growing older, you know the drill. Here, though, the formula is remarkably successful - something about this album's combination of easily-comprehensible sonic beauty and gentle explorations of topics which I feel in my very bones but aren’t quite eloquent enough to express gives me something to hold on to, and it’s a lovely thing.
There’s a song your parents used to love, back when you were young
Country music has always had a privileged place in my rotation. Somewhere between growing up in an American small town, with all the Friday night football games and 4th of July parades that entails, and my parents’ assortment of Willie Nelson and Don Williams cassettes, something just clicked. It’s a “part of me”, and presumably always will be. It’s also an art form for which deep analysis is challenging - the appeal is more intuitive than anything, and genuine feeling is the most important currency. With that in mind, my undying revulsion towards the current cluster of clowns soaking up most of the time on the Nashville airwaves is less about any underlying formula (experimenting with other genre influences, etc., is fine by me) and more about the fake-ness and charade of it all - at a minimum, country music needs to move you, and that garbage (painting with a broad brush) sure doesn’t.
Cheap snarking at low hanging fruit aside,
The Ones That Stay is the good stuff. Platt’s singing isn’t exactly revelatory, but she’s got the perfect voice and style to sing this kind of Americana, recalling in more vigorous moments the fire of Lucinda Williams and, more regularly, Emmylou Harris’ trademark blend of strength and sorrow. The Honeycutters are up to the task as well, setting the stage with weeping pedal steel and delicate piano, as well as periodic backing vocals, to great effect. And, vitally, Platt’s lyricism is absolutely lovely (some of her passages dot this review), never becoming too academic, built around compelling narratives of navigating the travails of existence, delivered with straightforward honesty.
Every time we’d leave, you’d blow kisses from the window, yeah, you and me were never good at lettin’ go
It’s been a rough few years for this reviewer - a rapid sequence of parents and grandparents shuffling off this mortal coil compounding the more ordinary stresses of aging and the dwindling regularity of having a bunch of comforting old friends at your fingertips, not to mention the unconscious, looming, fears of a deteriorating geopolitical situation. Maybe that’s why
The Ones That Stay resonates so strongly with me - not only does the album dwell a lot upon the relentless ravages of undefeated Father Time, but it’s also an exceptionally warm listen.
Indeed, while most of the tunes here wouldn’t be out of place in the set of an unusually great bar band at some All-American tavern near you, and that’s part of the appeal, the record balances this aspect with a rather lush and dreamy presentation. A song like “Window Pane”, the longest on the album, achieves a kind of relaxing placidity, while there’s an undeniable elegance to other tracks like the lilting “On The Street Where You Live” or the stately “Saint Angela”. All together, it’s a remarkably immersive listen, reliably casting a mellow sunset glow on your activities, regardless of whether your intention is background listening or, better yet, a more focused spin.
Let me turn the light out in this empty little room, it was all we knew
In around fifty-three minutes (twelve songs), Platt and the Honeycutter brigade have achieved a tasteful balance of more upbeat tracks, like the mournful but relatively energetic “Forever” and the thoughtful “The Muse Of Time” and more sedate offerings, like “Clean Slate” (which was stuck in my head when I woke up this morning) and the melancholy “Pocket Song”. Overall, slow to mid-paced songs are predominant, but it works - from the cascade of piano notes which begins opener “Mirage” to the sparse sendoff of closer “Empty Little Room”, these musicians have you under their spell. That last song is the perfect final piece to this puzzle, a heartfelt meditation on those bittersweet moments in life which mark the closing of one chapter and the opening of another. Every time its reflective aura wafts over me, something crystallizes and I’m overcome by the same unoriginal (but no less powerful for it) idea which has been tugging at me throughout the rest of the enriching experience of listening to this album - despite all the varied hardships which beset us as humans, it remains a beautiful thing to be alive.
The Ones That Stay is a great Americana album, but in just a few days I’ve found it to be more than that - a treasured vessel of wisdom and memories. Who knows, maybe it will be for you too.
Let me be the last one out the door.
