Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel – Things To Come
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Posted On November 1, 1999
Following an eponymous 1997 EP, the first full-length release from Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel draws on Lloyd Maines’ faultless production and limber pedal steel, as well as hired guns John Rice on fiddle and banjo and Joel Guzman (of Los Super Seven) on button accordion. Emphasis falls where it should: on Fermin’s endlessly pleasurable alto and onetime Riptone Andon Davis’ spiffy, multitonal guitar work.
Trigger Gospel, a straight-shooting country-rock vehicle for Fermin’s vibrant, intuitive, gut-deep vocal flair, doesn’t have quite the range of their singer’s voice. Still, their command of dynamics is sure enough to lift the unassuming Americana pop tune “Polite Conversations” to an epic, guitar-soaring crest.
With the exception of the standard “Besame Mucho” (featuring a spectacular, modulating vocal peak), Fermin penned every track on Things To Come, and therein lies the problem. As the album moves along, it becomes clear that neither band nor singer can make up for inconsistent material. The songs aren’t especially clever, nor introspective, nor urgent, nor really suggestive — they’re just decent exercises for Fermin’s voice.
For instance, “10 More Miles” — with its chorus, “I’ve heard ’em say the odds are a million to one/But even if the chances were never or none/Who really cares when you’re having this much fun” — is so prosaic the effect is dispiriting. “Run With You” labors along to the point of stalling completely, while the confusion expressed in “Do Or Die” isn’t about to be illuminated by cliches such as “Take it any way you can/It can’t be wrong if it feels so right.”
Fermin saves her most captivating composition for last — the country gospel radiance of “Hoping For You”, which distills Trigger Gospel’s still unfolding talents down to a simple, gorgeous, soulful moment.
