This is Anais Mitchell's first solo album in 10 years, and while her work with Eric D. Johnson and Josh Kaufman on the revisited folk classics with ‘Bonny Light Horseman’ was a delight, this is the real deal. And despite the fact we are only in January, it’s an early contender for album of the year.
This does not sound like a return, it sounds like a new voice exploring the world afresh. Anais’ vocal, while retaining that unique quirkiness, has rounded into a compelling instrument that is totally beguiling. This an artist who has been to hell and back in a good way. Anais spent a decade writing, developing, refining, and finally triumphing with her musical ‘Hadestown’, a magical retelling of the Orpheus in the Underworld myth, and of his doomed love for Eurydice. The musical garnered 8 Tony Awards and a Grammy.
Now, she has finally found time to get back to the day job and produce an album that rings in its simplicity of sound and clarity of ideas and memories.
‘Brooklyn Bridge’ is a homage to her one-time adopted home of New York and the seemingly endless possibilities it can appear to offer. It’s a beautiful opening to an album that further lightens up with the gorgeous ‘Bright Star’. We’re not sure if the star of the title is a beloved person or a spirit within leading the artist through life but the gratitude for their presence is poetically expressed:
There’s a thought upon me dawning. You have launched a thousand longings, and I don’t know who you are, bright star. You have never been my vessel, or the wind my sails have wrestled, or the lands to which I travelled, or the friends with whom I revelled. There are lengths to which you’ll never know I went to be your lover and beloved in your sight, bright star.
There is so much here, not only to admire but to love. Anais carries the listener on her sentimental slipstream in a quietly captivating manner.
You always had those laughing eyes. You wouldn’t have wanted me to cry. You wouldn’t want me haunted by the song we never got to write.
This, on ‘On Your Way (Felix Song)’ underscored by the repeated line “you’re on your way” is a beautiful elegy to her friend Felix McTeigue, with whom she shared songs and aspirations.
‘Revenant’, as the name suggests, is another homage to someone who left a mark on the artist – in this case her grandmother, whose spirit is celebrated and fondly and emotionally remembered:
Read your letters all again, coffee rings and a ballpoint pen. Tear stains every now and then, and I remember what they meant.
The writing as one might expect is clear and smart. How many artists could encapsulate so much in a line such as:
We’re as young as we’ll ever be, old as we’ve ever been.
‘Backroads’ begins as a seemingly misty-eyed memory of growing up but halfway through, it takes a sharp turn and in a few succinctness and subtle lines, takes a look at racism and white privilege:
Different cop on the same night stopped a kid about a taillight. Somebody thought he didn’t look right. Might as well have said he didn’t look white.
‘Now You Know’ is another achingly beautiful song that manages to say so much about life’s journey, resolutions with the past, and love in a little over 3 minutes. A little pearl of a song when it first came to light on her acoustic ‘Xoa’ album, here it is given a little extra sheen and requires a review in its own right. It’s a stunningly graceful look at life.
In truth, these are beautifully crafted songs that touch on such a wide variety of topics, aging, and death, reverence and remembrance, racism and equality. Each one is a carefully crafted poem set to an enticing melody and delivered with Anais’ uniquely exquisite voice. Having conquered Broadway, a second album due with her Bonny Light Horseman bandmates, and a European tour in the autumn. This should be Anais Mitchell year.
On the basis of this stunning album alone, it will be richly deserved.