You Are Free

text

The sheer force of emotion and power that hits you as you first listen to this recording is mindblowing. As the sparse piano begins and Chan Marshall's pained beautiful voice begins to weave it's poetic tale, you'll find yourself entranced by her dulcit tones and hanging on every word of her stories, sometimes lost in melancholic tones, washed along in forlorn and achingly sad violin, or contrasted with the driving upbeat staccato lo-fi rock of tracks like 'Free' punctuated with the occasional simple drum loops, or the sing-a-long hook of 'speak for me' or 'He War'.

The music draws you in, like being taken into someone's confidence, shown a piece of their soul, then sworn to silence; awestruck, overcome, eternally grateful, your mouth sagging in disbelief at the sincerity and rawness of the experience.

The thing about this record is how easily it manages to express such ferocity of feeling . The songs themselves are very simply constructed and by the sound of it, little in post-production, yet you're completely overwhelmed, inspired, filled, sated. This is classic song writing, timeless, ethereal, without peer. There's pain and anger, but there is also determination and fire, the feeling that fuck it, no matter how bad things get, you're going through with it regardless and you'll be stronger for it in the end.