Sara Swenson – All Things Big and Small
Album Reviews • Thursday January 27th, 2011 • 12:12 pm
By Matt Conner
StereoSubversion.com
There are times on Sara Swenson’s third release where if you close your eyes and listen real carefully, you might just think that Sarah McLachlan has added a bit of a smoky Southern drawl to her repertoire, ditched her pop sensibilities and gone entirely in the direction of Folk/Americana music. It’s pretty uncanny, really. Fortunately, Kansas City’s brightest star (she was won the praises of the Kansas City Star, appeared on the bill of a Lilith Fair stop in that city and won competitions for best singer-songwriter and top recording of the year) is more than a McLachlan wannabe.
Sounding like an excellent musical complement to a long, lazy drive toward a sunset in the middle of America’s heartland, All Things Big and Small basks in the glow of the parallels that are so easily drawn between life and a cross-country road trip. In case there is any doubt about this metaphor, Swenson writes song titles like “While I Drove the Roads” and “Passing Cars, Passing Time” while making sure to include references to moving on without looking back (“East”). Additionally, the album is very natural and elemental, a fact which aptly complements the stripped-down nature of the album. The piano ballad “River, You and Me” paints a picture of a couple beneath a star-filled sky having one of those spellbinding “moments,” “Snow” is as much a descriptor of the scene of the song as it is something which most easily brings up the memory associated with the song’s content, and “Night Sounds” is tailor-made for a campfire performance.
Swenson captivates with her easygoing deliveries, a fact which is augmented by the range she displays; when she’s not singing in a flat manner that works surprisingly well (“O, My Babies”), she sings in higher, velvety tones as well (“Messy Love”). A great collection of musicians accompany her, with bass, lap steel guitar, pedal steel guitar, drums and keys all appearing throughout and usually in such subtle ways that you hardly notice they are there until they’ve been going for some time. The effect is quite nice, and so is the album.
Link to article at Stereo Subversion