Lydia Loveless – Somewhere Else

Yes, from Batman.
Specifically, the Heath Ledger Dark Knight Joker.

Yeah, I know…even for me, a guy who relishes in way-out-there analogies (one of my crowning achievements was impressing the conservative parents of a college student I had in a Sunday School class with my lesson built entirely about a throw-away line from “White Men Can’t Jump”), that’s a stretch.

But I remember when the Dark Knight came out I told a friend that I thought Heath Ledger transcended the movie.  It was a hard concept to explain, but basically I felt that everyone else in the movie existed within the framework of the film.  There were boundaries and lines.  Every role existed within those.  Most performances do.  But Ledger didn’t pay attention to those lines.  It’s a rare phenomenon when an actor pulls that off.  It’s not sloppy.  They’re not a bull in a china shop, busting through the lines and boundaries.  Just the opposite.  They gracefully slip past them, go over them, weave through them.  At the same time, it’s powerful.  The borders can’t contain them.

That’s how Lydia Loveless’s voice strikes me on this record.  There is a framework for it; the music, song structure, etc.  But her voice is so big and powerful and emotive that the framework can’t contain it.  At the same time, she knows how to use it.  It doesn’t get away from her.  It’s never a bull in a china shop.   It’s just a big, beautiful instrument that she can wield at will, regardless of the lines and boundaries around her.

She’s explained numerous times that when it was time for her follow up album, she made every good effort at copying the sound of her previous album, assuming that’s what everyone wanted/expected.  When she realized that just wasn’t where she was, she scrapped it and wrote from her heart, coming up with a new sound. 

You will (or have…I’m pretty late in sharing this one) hear a lot of reviewers talk about that sound.  Yes, there are elements of country and punk in there (see every song).  I haven’t heard as many people mention the power pop (again, all of ‘em) and southern soul influences (“Hurts So Bad”), though.  But given the wild-ass blend of hybridized and bastardized sounds I’m used to sharing on Dirty Roots, that’s not what’s groundbreaking here.  That’s not a slight, either.  The band sounds great…but ultimately, the music is just Loveless’s canvas.

What’s special here is everything to do with her performance.  That swollen, sultry, achy voice.  It sounds like it may actually burst from longing or pain.  Her tremolo is used to perfect effect.  She swoops and stretches, crossing lines, ignoring standard rules.