Being on your own with an acoustic guitar is surely one of the bravest things a musician can do. There is nowhere to hide in that setting. No band to crash in behind you, no huge production to cushion the blow, no place for the song to go if it is not good enough. And that is what makes “the acrobat” such a bold move from Tenille Townes. On her third album she takes a clear step towards a more intimate, singer-songwriter, folk-leaning sound, stripping everything back to lyric, melody and emotional truth.
Written during a period of profound personal and professional transition, this is a record that finds Townes standing at a crossroads between who she has been and who she is becoming. That might sound lofty written down like that, but song by song it feels painfully real.
“ordinary love song” opens things with a beautiful vocal set against an acoustic arrangement that only adds to its pull. It is simple, but never slight. The title track, featuring Lori McKenna, is poetic and bruised, and when Townes sings, “she’s been pretending for so long she doesn’t know why she’s pretending,” the vulnerability of it is impossible to miss.
There is no easing up with “enabling,” which is genuinely harrowing, while “we could use a little more” feels like a plea delivered with such clarity that you are forced to admit she is not wrong. It is around here that the record really reveals its power. There is something beautiful in the brutal beauty of acoustic albums when they are done right. The first one I ever heard that really got me was Springsteen’s “Nebraska,” and while Townes sounds nothing like him, she understands the same basic truth: stripped-back songs can often hit the hardest.
“lonely talking” aches in all the right places, and “she plays the piano” has the feel of something she simply had to say before it consumed her. “grey like emmylou,” with I’m With Her, brings in gorgeous harmonies and a little lift without ever breaking the spell. Then “what’s meant for you” injects a touch more energy and offers up the sort of line that stops you in your tracks: it turns out the right thing is the hard thing. By the time “in love with the sky” closes things out, the raw emotion is still palpable, but so is the sense that Townes has untangled something inside herself.
There is a school of thought that says music, particularly now, should be escapism. Fair enough. I like Poison’s “Nothin’ But A Good Time” as much as the next man. But when music becomes catharsis, when it sounds like somebody is actually working through life in front of you, it becomes something else entirely.
Oddly enough, I was listening to Bon Jovi’s “This Ain’t A Love Song” the other day, a song that soundtracks a particular point in my own life, without knowing this record was waiting round the corner. Maybe that is why “the acrobat” connected so strongly. The best records do not just tell somebody else’s story. They colour your own.
A true balancing act, then, and one Tenille Townes pulls off with real elan.
RATING: 8.5/10
