Nashville-based singer-songwriter Michaela Anne achieved a breakthrough with her fourth album, 2019’s ‘Desert Dove’. Finding herself more in demand and invited to larger festival stages, she went through a period of personal struggle, struggle that only increased as the pandemic set in, and she became pregnant with her first child. She was in her first trimester when she recorded the follow-up to ‘Desert Dove’, ‘Oh To Be That Free’.
‘Oh To Be Free That Free’Â was inspired, in part, by travels undertaken during the enforced isolation of the pandemic. I first heard the album’s strongest track, ‘Mountains and Mesas’, when I saw Michaela open for Joe Pug in January. I was impressed with then, even in bare, solo acoustic format, and I’m even more impressed with it now that I’ve heard it in a full arrangement. She really has a talent for writing simple, beautiful lyrics that capture natural scenes and events. This song works so well because it’s trimmed to the bare minimum, and it doesn’t hang any fat on its bones. Andrew Leahey, whose songwriting I’ve praised, told me the best advice he ever got was to make your songs as small as they can be, and then make them even smaller. Michaela does that here to salutary effect. ‘If Only You Knew’ isn’t quite as stripped down, but it also allows Michaela to use her gifts for naturalistic imagery.
The songwriting here works best when it’s a scene — a vignette — or a story or a character sketch. The title track, ‘Oh To Be That Free’, a description of a carefree little farm girl, is poignant and charming. She draws a strong picture of her parents’ lives in ‘Chasing the Days’.
The writing here sometimes loses locus when it gets too conceptual. ‘It’s Just A Feeling’ has some interesting ideas about mindfulness, but ideas in songs and stories are often better conveyed by way of character and plot than by explicit discussion. (Although this principle has major exceptions like Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’. Show me a writing principle without an exception, and I’ll show you where you’re wrong.) I give Michaela credit for her willingness to tackle some complex, thorny ideas on this album, but I wonder if some of the ideas she’s trying to work through in these songs may be a little too complex for the format she’s working in. For a 3-4 minute song, the core ideas have to be pretty simple, even if the execution is novel; if you’re working with more complex, nuanced ideas, you’re probably going to need more time to unfold that stuff and really make sense of it. I don’t know that some of the ideas that Michaela wants to work can be reduced to a level of simplicity that’s going to allow her to effectively pack into songs of the length she tends to create.
Much on this album is quite good, with several tracks being excellent. Michaela Anne’s voice is a highlight, she can sketch compelling characters, and she really excels in her ability to describe nature. There’s a lot to like here.
Track listing: 1. I’m Only Human 2. Trees 3. Chasing Days 4. Who You Are 5. Oh To Be That Free Again 6. Good People 7. Dirty Secrets 8. Does It Ever Break Your Heart 9. If Only You Knew 10. Mountains And Mesas 11. It’s Just A Feeling Record label: Yep Roc Records Release date: 10th June 2022 Buy ‘Oh To Be That Free’ now
[rwp-reviewer-rating-stars id=”0″]
