Product Description Loyalty, the third and finest album yet by The Weather Station (and the first for Paradise of Bachelors) wrestles with these knotty notions of faithfulness/faithlessness to our idealism, our constructs of character, our memories, and to our family, friends, and lovers representing a bold step forward into new sonic and psychological inscapes. It's a natural progression for Toronto artist Tamara Lindeman s acclaimed songwriting practice. In excess virtue lies danger, or at least limits to pragmatic action it's a lesson hard learned by anyone disillusioned by the erosion of youthful mythologies. Strict fealty to a fixed ideal of identity doesn't do us any favors as adults. Loyalty, the third and finest album yet by The Weather Station (and the first for Paradise of Bachelors) wrestles with these knotty notions of faithfulness/faithlessness to our idealism, our constructs of character, our memories, and to our family, friends, and lovers representing a bold step forward into new sonic and psychological inscapes. It's a natural progression for Toronto artist Tamara Lindeman's acclaimed songwriting practice. Recorded at La Frette Studios just outside Paris in the winter of 2014, in close collaboration with Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas) and Robbie Lackritz (Feist), the record crystallizes her lapidary songcraft into eleven emotionally charged vignettes and intimate portraits, redolent of fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and David Wiffen, but utterly her own. In excess virtue lies danger, or at least limits to pragmatic action it's a lesson hard learned by anyone disillusioned by the erosion of youthful mythologies. Strict fealty to a fixed ideal of identity doesn t do us any favors as adults. Recorded at La Frette Studios just outside Paris in the winter of 2014, in close collaboration with Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas) and Robbie Lackritz (Feist), the record crystallizes her lapidary songcraft into eleven emotionally charged vignettes and intimate portraits, redolent of fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and David Wiffen, but utterly her own. Lindeman describes La Frette, housed in an enormous, crumbling 19th-century mansion, as 'a secret garden, a place of enchantment and grace': walls mantled in ivy and lions, corridors piled high with discarded tape machines, old reels, and priceless guitars. As she puts it, 'Recording where we did meant we embraced beauty we weren't afraid of it being beautiful.' Like the record itself, it's a quietly radical statement, especially since certain passages achieve a diaphanous eeriness and harmonic and rhythmic tension new to The Weather Station. The stacked vocal harmonies of Tapes, the drifting, jazz-inflected chording in Life's Work, and the glacial percussion in Personal Eclipse contribute to a pervading sense of clock-stopping bloom and smolder, recalling the spooky avant-soul of Terry Callier s Occasional Rain.
J**.
Perfect dream folk certainly the best of the year in its style
Fantastic record, really beautifull, unique in its still, she gets what many try these days of neo folk fashion unsuccesfully.
T**F
Stardust and Moonlight
I'll be brief. Canadian singer/songwriter Tamara Lindeman's new album is among thefinest albums I have heard so-far in a year already filled with a great many sonic riches.One of the several beauties of 'Loyalty' is that she makes it all sound so very easy.It's isn't of course; craft of this kind is both innate and hard-won; either way a gift.Ms Lindeman has a gorgeous voice. Tonally it inhabits the middle of the stave; warmrich and effortlessly expressive; an instrument you could spend a lifetime getting to know.There are eleven songs on the album and something to love in each and every one.The folksy opening number 'Way It Is, Way It Could Be' ripples along on the back ofa solid rotating bass and percussion figure, some wonderfully limpid guitar lines andthe occasional appearance of luminous strings glowing like golden clouds at sunset.The title track 'Loyalty' inhabits a simpler structure but contains one of the loveliestvocal performances in the set; steady like a boat made out of well-seasoned wood.I have tendency to over-use the word "sublime" whenever music connects directly insome way to my heart but I make no apology in using it again here to describe thebeautiful composition 'Like Sisters'; a song worth its weight in stardust and moonlight.Please don't let this album pass you by.Essential.
A**N
Five Stars
Lovely
N**N
Five Stars
Beautifully understated album, very listenable.
S**E
An elegant next step
2011's All Of It Was Mine struck a resonant chord in me and I've been a big fan of Tamara Lindeman's musical output ever since. Loyalty, by comparison, sounds more cautious in its execution, tempering Lindeman's raw emotion with more ornate arrangements. For that reason, these songs took me a bit longer to fall into. Although the record is less immediate and gut-punching than her previous one (in my opinion), her songwriting strives for elegance and achieves mesmerizing results. This is a beguiling folk record worth checking out.
J**N
An important singer and songwriter- audio not worth an investment in vinyl.
Saw her live just a few weeks back with a different (excellent) rhythm section, but this LP was recorded earlier, and is a bit more pedestrian in that regard. Much more important to me was the recorded sound, which did an amazing job of making very hard to distinguish the handful of instruments from one another, and put the vocals just far back enough in the mix to force the listener to the lyrics printed on the back cover. I was really taken aback at how unclear this recording is, and I don't this stems from an artistic decision.
P**N
Joni Mitchell revivified
If the woman on the album cover would turn around, you'd see that it's actually Joni Mitchell. If you'd like a new Joni Mitchell album with today's production values and good vibe, then this album's for you. But seriously, it's good in its own right.
A**R
The new stuff is great and unbelievably the old stuff is even better
The new stuff is great and unbelievably the old stuff is even better. Wish I'd known about them before now.
T**N
Great album when you can hear it.
My only complaint about the music here is that the recording seems turned down really low. I don't want it to be a struggle to hear the music that I'm trying to listen to.
