“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen! Will someone from the Carter Family please come to customer service? We found your kid, Jolie roaming the aisles.” After listening to alt-everything singer Jolie Holland’s bluesy, rootsy, jazzy third album Springtime Can Kill You, it’s easy to imagine her belonging to the classic clan. With her fractured delicate voice and knack for carrying 1920s traditional songs like “Adieu False Heart” into the modern age, it’s no surprise that this album will please Holland’s loyal fan following.
Whether or not it gains her a larger following is debatable. There’s a lot to love about this album, but since the LP is not overly accessible, the majority of the songs may fall into a “for the musically brave only” category. “Mehitabel’s Blues” starts out as a decent torch song but stretches a little too far and almost falls into parody towards the end. The singer/songwriter bounces back though with the CR Avery penned song “Crazy Dreams”, a dreamy old-fashioned type of tune that begs for a front porch and one of those boxy old radios.
If you can get past the fact that there is a tuba playing on “You’re Not Satisfied”, it’s easy to be taken in by the song’s spell. But, where Holland’s true strength as a singer/songwriter lies is in creating slice of life tunes that are specific but yet still relatable to all. If Joni Mitchell’s “Night in the City” covered the charms of urban sprawl after dark, Jolie Holland gets a chance to serenade the daytime hustle and bustle of the “sunny city bus” with “Crush in the Ghetto”. While “Crush” doesn’t have the same carefree melody of the Mitchell song, it’s still an above average entry into the “city song” genre.
Ever the vocal chameleon, the Texas native gives a shout out to her home state by adding some twang to the mix on the plaintive “Moonshiner”. Holland has been better known in the past for her jazz stylings, but it’s the country-flavored tracks that pack a real punch on this album. Overall, Springtime Can Kill You is not of those albums you can put on in the background and ignore. It needs an attentive ear, but if you’re willing to put in the effort, you won’t be disappointed. |