ALBUM REVIEW: For ‘Queen of Time,’ Lindsay Lou Crafts Songs on Taking Care

On Queen of Time, her first album without the Flatbellys, Lindsay Lou tracks her progress through recent turmoil and grief that led to songs of hope and realization. In this album of self-discovery, she addresses the competing tensions women face.

In the title song, she explores the paradoxes:

What a thrill it is to not be needed
What a drag it is to be all thrills

. . . 

I have learned to love the work that I do
I have not yet learned to love it when you make it harder

Throughout the album, though, the messages of her lyrics prove more universal: People need to listen to each other, to take care of each other. “Love Calls” opens with a calypso-inspired beat. A synthesizer and an array of world music instruments — caxixi, pandeiro, djembe — augment the more traditional guitar and mandolin. Lou’s voice itself rings like an instrument in the song, a foil to her late grandmother’s voice reproduced here from fragments of recordings of their phone calls. In the song, the older woman tells Lou about chance encounter with a man at a gathering who later tells her she saved his life. The lyrics describe a strong woman, presumably Lou’s Grandma Nancy, then the repeated phrase:

Love calls, you’re gonna answer.
Love calls, you’re gonna answer.

Near the end of the album, the grandmother speaks again, preparing Lou for loss, reminding her, “This too shall pass.”

Queen of Time contains a carefully curated collection of songs matched to Lou’s clear, powerful voice. It opens with “Nothing Else Matters,” setting the tone of loss and acceptance. Phoebe Hunt, one of the song’s co-writers, recently included a stripped-down rendition of the song on her recent album, which shares the song’s title (ND review). Lou’s version, featuring dobro master Jerry Douglas, has a fuller instrumental background and harmony, softening the plaintive tone.

Billy Strings also joins Lou on vocals and guitar on “Nothing’s Working,” a song they co-wrote during the pandemic and finished after a tragedy in the neighborhood they share. The song advocates “taking time to listen to the quiet ones.” Strings included the song on his 2020 album Renewal (ND review). He also plays on “Shame,” a song challenging the idea that that emotion has any value.

While most of the tracks were written or co-written by Lou, she gives a fresh spin to Billy Swan’s “I Can Help.” Her rendition sounds more like a genuine offer of help than a pick-up line. Throughout the album, in fact, Lou offers her presence and reassurance. In “On Your Side (Starman)” she repeats, “Time is on our side … I am on your side.”

On Queen of Time, Lindsay Lou sounds like a woman who has taken control of her future. She’s looking back, but not letting what’s behind her weigh her down. “Rules,” she declares in the track by that name, “are made for breaking.” She looks back at where she’s been, noting, “I’ve been a long time gone.” Looking forward now, she adds, she’s “wondering what’s home.”

Lindsay Lou’s Queen of Time is out Sept. 29 on Kill Rock Stars.