It might seem premature to call this Nashville singer’s first full-length a breakthrough, but that’s very much the way it sounds. Along with Cat Power and Beth Orton, Niceley moves around plush sheets of sound with troubled emotions and sensual insights. She draws on the blues for personal strength, and on string sections — meticulously and soulfully arranged and performed by Chris Carmichael — for grace. Those strings turn Bobby Blue Bland’s “Blind Man” into “Blind Woman”, and along with Niceley’s darting and lingering phrasing, transform the song into a drama that both Bobbie Gentry and Nina Simone would recognize.
And while her voice will remind some of Billie Holiday, it’s Simone that Niceley most often evokes. Her passions may be personal rather than political, but she employs jazz intonations to give her lyrics — sometimes surreal and naturalist, sometimes as direct as a Hoagy Carmichael standard — an otherworldly but instantly felt resonance.
Producer and guitarist Joe McMahan pressurizes every figure, sometimes red-lining his slide swells, sometimes playing against the melody like a post-jazz improviser, sometimes dissolving notes like sugar cubes in bourbon. The rhythm section of Dave Jacques and Rick Reed sounds like soft rain through dogwood trees, gently complementing stories of soul journeys through shadows and mountains and visions seen through dark eyes. Moody, restive and purposeful, Niceley has made one of the most purely beautiful albums of the year.