Rhode Island singer-songwriter Orion Rigel Dommisse is part of the latest round of women like Marissa Nadler and Jana Hunter who make their own solitary type of soul-searching folk music. While Dommisse and her folk sisters are definitely offshoots of extreme folk queen Joanna Newsom, they have eschewed her more pronounced eccentricities in favor of a more rustic, earthen sound that keeps you a little bit on edge and wondering what's coming around the next musical bend. With all the mysterious sounds coming from the mixture of vibraphones, harps, and electric violins, it's no wonder that there's a dark tone that pushes the album just over the line towards the dark side of gray.
Taking her cue from songs like the haunting “Ashes From Your Burning Wood” and the lilting requiem “Suicide Kiss (Because Dead),” Dommisse creates a landscape full of cold and lonely portraits. “I could use my bow to row my weakened body,” she sings with a heartbroken desperation. But in the midst of her musical despair, the Providence native has found a certain kind of beauty. There are sweet melodies and Dommisse’s own sprite-like vocals that cut through the gloomy mood and offer something like the promise of cheerier times to come.
The singer spends a lot of time harping on sounds and stories (the mentions of a princess and castle in "A Giver") that could be described as olden, but one of the album's strongest songs is a modern, stripped to the bone track called "Drink Yourself (To Death)." It's a chiller that cuts right to the chase. Dommisse, with her breathy vocals perfectly in place, takes no prisoners when she croons out lyrics like "drink yourself to death so I'll never have to see you again."
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