ALBUM REVIEW: Jessye DeSilva Puts Life Into Listenable ‘Landscapes’
Rachel Cholst
Posted On April 12, 2022
It takes a lifetime to make your first album, and Jessye DeSilva has had a lot of life to pour into Landscapes. DeSilva, who is an assistant professor of voice at Berklee College of Music, has crafted a tour de force of queer country music, driven by their impassioned performance. Landscapes examines heartbreak, finding oneself, and breaking away from home — and celebrates the resilience built through those experiences. With its liberal references to ’70s rock and the gentleness in DeSilva’s performance, Landscapes is an album for all seasons.
Comparisons to Elton John and Brandi Carlile are easy — DeSilva clearly takes a page from these idols, anchoring their songs in pop melody juggernauts, gauzy textures, and vocal bravado. However, deSilva’s obvious delight in ’90s country divas brings an earthiness to their songwriting that roots Landscapes to reality, even as DeSilva invokes the supernatural in tracks like “Siren Song” and “Devil in New Jersey.”
The latter song acts as the album’s emotional climax, detailing DeSilva’s own upbringing in a conservative, religious household locked away in the Pine Barrens. DeSilva plays with the local folklore, fighting back against the hypocrisy of religious fundamentalism while questioning where, exactly, the devil lies. Far from vitriolic, DeSilva focuses their energy on transcending the pain, a forward momentum that jubilantly embraces the chorus’s final line: “Life’s more than staying alive.”
Likewise, DeSilva’s “Family Tree” carefully captures the distinctly queer experience of creating a chosen family. DeSilva celebrates the halting creation of that new family: how friends, acquaintances, and former lovers evolve into a network that is so much more meaningful. Only DeSilva can unite bemusement and pride into a rolling piano ballad.
It’s not all joy — “Wild Carnivorous Sea” and “Hibernate” face depression and loneliness head-on, though with DeSilva at the helm we know we’ll make it out okay. At the end of the day, DeSilva reminds us over and over again, we will make it through — and beyond.
