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NBHAP Rating: 3,5/5
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[one_half last=”yes”]MEG BAIRD
Don’t Weigh Down The Light
Release-Date: 22.06.2015
Label: Wichita
Tracklist:
01. Counterfeiters
02. I Don’t Mind
03. Mosquito Hawks
04. Back to You
05. Past Houses
06. Leaving Song
07. Stars Unwinding
08. Good Directions
09. Don’t Weigh Down the Light
10. Even the Walls Don’t Want You to Go
11. Past Houses (Reprise)
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An intimate affair
Working with with many musicians and singing for psychedelic folk rockers ESPERS, MEG BAIRD had been an active member of Philadelphia’s alternative folk scene for over a decade, when it became time for a change. She’s now based in San Francisco and her new album Don’t Weigh Down The Light is a reflection of said move. It’s a fragile and beautiful take on melancholic folk in the likes of ANGEL OLSEN, MAZZY STAR or TRESPASSERS WILLIAM. In short, it’s an intimate and intense affair.
The first kiss
The album starts off with what could be its strongest song – the current single Counterfeiters. But make no mistake: This was just a first kiss and there’s a whole lot more to follow. Gentle acoustic and electric guitars, picked or strummed, distant bottleneck-sounds and guitar solos as well as, most prominently through the course of the record, MEG‘s soft, hushed and beautiful voice. Apropos, Don’t Weigh Down The Light provides such intimacy, it feels like you’re on a first name basis barely into track two.
Falling in and out of love
But like any ardent love stories, the album bears the danger of habituation. Because, let’s be honest, the record feels a tad monotonous at times. Its lack of far reaching variety in instrumentation and similar vocal lines throughout the album – something that shouldn’t and mustn’t be confused with artistic consistency, which BAIRD utterly provides – are the main causes for this. Later, when energetic percussion enters the stage in Good Directions, things become refreshing again. Thereupon, in the title track and in stripped down melancholic calmness, MEG BAIRD is back at her most intriguing, compelling and thought-provoking. We move to happier days, she serenades respectively. And just like that, the butterflies are back.
MEG BAIRD’s Don’t Weigh Down The Light will make you forget and remember everything: your first kiss, the beauty and strains of love and the value of it all.
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