Grey Delisle is a prolific voice actress as well as a gifted singer-songwriter and amongst her plans for this year is that she`s to record with non-other than John Carter Cash. There`s a twenty track release `The Grey Album` out this month with cuts that were inspired from all sorts of places and situations.
The opening salvo `Hello, I’m Lonesome` is dripping with a sense of isolation and heartache which is almost tangible in the vocal delivery, a song that came out of a speed dating event. There`s a defiant nigh on haunting feel to `Who to Love` which for some reason brought to mind Sam Cooke`s `Wonderful World`.
`A Coastal Town` is a co-write with Joey Simeone and is a melancholic introspective musing with some really enticing strings. We enjoy a rhythmic cautionary tale of a wronged women and the inevitable consequences with `Reach for the Sky` with it`s delicious steel guitar hues.
Grey has Mexican roots and acknowledges these with the charming `Mi Vida` which appears to translate to `My Life` a swaying Day of The Dead song. There`s a heartbreaking ballad in `Tomorrow (Without You)` which will leave you with a lump in your throat. Wonderful stuff.
`Sister Shook` has an edgy retro rock vibe with some lovely understated electric guitar riffs, a kind of doo wap offering that brought to mind The Ad Libs `The Boy From New York City` a tale of exorcising a lover. To me Country music really excels with heartbreaking ballads and `Daddy, Can You Fix a Broken Heart?` is up there with the best. A poignant tale that will pull at your heartstrings and for me Grey`s `Coat of Many Colours`.
Is there ever enough cowbell in a song??? Grey met Runaways’ Cherie Currie at a dinner party, just after she`d written `40-Something Runaway` and the result is a duet that will stay with you for the rest of the day once you`ve heard it. There`s an almost spiritual feel to `A Promise I Can’t Keep` with vocals that express an intensive vulnerability with complementing haunting steel guitar tones. A song that was inspired after witnessing a couple arguing on the way into a wedding dress shop which didn`t bode well.
`Didn’t We Try` is bouncy upbeat and nearly a pop song with Steven McCartney of the Long Ryders / Jayhawks fame adding his harmonies, a number about dating when you shouldn’t. There`s a pulse like a heartbeat running throughout `Convince Me` with some heart wrenching strings and before I’d read anything about the number I thought it was similar to `It`s Over` by Roy Orbison, only to discover that Grey`s friend and producer Marvin Etzioni had written it with the “Big O” in mind. Exquisite.
`I’m a Wreck` has a mix of drum, mandolin and bass that allows Grey`s vocals to shine on this metaphor of the aftermath of a destroyed or ruined relationship. Sadly, Death goes hand in hand with Life and `Don’t Let Go of My Hand` is about being privileged to being there at the passing of somebody close to you. In this case it`s Grey`s grandma Eva Flores and the pain, agony and torment is all to clear. A wonderful eulogy which would draw a tear from a stone.
`I Can’t Be Kind` is a retro bluesy rocker from the viewpoint of somebody who recognises that they are beyond redemption. We have in `My Darlin’ Vivian` a love song with a delightful warble in the vocal delivery. A number inspired after reading Johnny Cash`s wife Vivian Liberto memoir about their early intensive relationship.
`The Last, Last Time` is a foot tapper about the final realisation of a partner whose had their last chance. We again have strings and a steel guitar running through `House on Fire` another song of a romance that`s run it`s course. The plucked wire guitar adds a further sense of irrevocable inevitability to the track.
`Take Me Dancing Again` is a nostalgic two step recollection of good times maybe for the last time as a trumpet adds a further tender expressive emotion. The final number `Red Dress` is an assertion of realising your self-worth and to me sits somewhere between `Honky Tonk Woman` and `The Wild Side of Life`. It ends with `Estoy usando el vestido rojo ahora mismo` or `I`m wearing that red dress tonight`.
`The Grey Album` runs at around an hour in length and has the cream of country musicians and beyond with Murry Hammond, Greg Leisz, Marvin Etzioni, DJ Bonebrake, Adam Pike, Tammy Rogers, Gideon Klien, Deke Dickerson, David Ralicke, Phil Jones, Paul Nelson, Steven McCarthy, and Cherie Currie all adding their talents to this all-encompassing listen.
There`s only one word to sum up this release and that`s “Stunning!!!”
Rating 9/10
