4/5: Jolie Holland’s new album, Springtime Can Kill You, pulls the listener into a dark underworld, crossing many musical genres along the way.
Jolie Holland's second studio effort positions the singer squarely in a traditon of female entertainers who exhude beauty and feminity while singing of whiskey and busted lips. On an album that effortlessly moves between folk, jazz, pop, and country, she regularly cavorts with the ghosts of such luminaries as Billie Holiday and Patsy Kline.
Holland's voice is a miasma, filling a room like the smell of turpentine as she spins tales of backwoods murder and mayhem. From the first note, it wraps around the imagination, sometimes suffocating, sometimes intoxicating, but always leaving the listener in a slightly altered state.
The album weaves through various tales of love, heartbreak, triumph and longing, all with a distinctly Southern-Gothic tinge. Along the way she makes many detours, from the airy, meandering vocals of "Crush in the Ghetto" to the deliberate, stalking pace of the sublime "Mexican Blue." At one moment, the listener is filled with the reckless childhood joy of flying on a country tire-swing, and in the next, the sickening realization that the river below is brimming with sharp rocks.
Holland, a native Texan, is at her best when she returns to her country roots. "Stubborn Beast" and "Moonshiner" display her mournfully hypnotic voice against a self-assured, almost snappy honky-tonk shuffle. When Holland sings, "I took my sister to the river, and I came back alone," in "Nothing Left To Do But Dream," it may be one of the most unsettling lines ever recorded.
If Springtime has any weakness, it appears when Holland shows off her vocal range on some of the slower and jazzier songs, such as "Ghostly Girl" and the album's title track. Her voice possesses such an unusual and distinct intonation that in these instances her diction occasionally slips from otherworldly to unintelligible.
Overall, though, Springtime is an incredible ride. If you shut your eyes and listen close enough, you might find Holland's creaking piano bench has transformed into a rickety old canoe, gently rocking and keeping time, as you float along beside this sexy chanteuse.
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