BettySoo - When We’re Gone

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 25 / 11 / 2015

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It doesn’t seem like five years since Texas-born BettySoo released her acclaimed album ‘Heat Sin Water Skin’ but it must feel like a lifetime to her. Not only has BettySoo had her own struggles with depression and insomnia but she has also had to deal with the lives of those around her collapsing as well, including the death of a very young child. While BettySoo has had to face her own problems and help those close to her deal with their own struggles during the five years since we last heard from her, using music as her outlet for all the hardships life has thrown at BettySoo and those in her life has resulted in the singer-songwriter’s most complete and satisfying album to date. The dozen original songs on ‘When We’re Gone’ were produced by BettySoo and Brian Standefer. Last time out we made mention of how much producer Gulf Morlix shaped the sound of ‘Heat Sin Water Skin’, not only from the producer’s chair but also from the array of instruments he played on that album. Morlix is absent this time and Standefer only contributes the occasional keyboard on some songs, but his cello is present on all but two tracks and compliments BettySoo’s train of thought on these songs perfectly. The atmospheric opener, ‘Listen’, is heavy on percussion, Standefer’s cello visit places that are usually forbidden to such an instrument, adding an eeriness that is even more enhanced by BettySoo’s own lead guitar squalls. It’s a brilliant way to open the album, as the listener’s attention is grabbed from the off and lyrically BettySoo proves she is still on top form. “Listen to the moan of a hurricane wind/Tearing through homes like kindling/Never knocking once just bursting right in/To the sounds of play of the children missing” sings BettySoo in an almost whisper adding to the chill factor and the abrupt end of the song, the way it just stops dead, is one of the most effective moves on the album. The second cut, ‘100 Different Ways of Being Alone’, despite its title and the mood generated by the opening track, is the owner of an unexpected and almost breezy arrangement. It’s a list song of sorts, and, although she doesn’t list a hundred things that make you feel alone, the three verses cover a wealth of feelings in which most listeners will find some connection with. “It’s the brother who never writes anymore/The uncle you never heard mentioned before, …life don’t work out like the plans you’d drawn/Had yourself some dreams now the wishing well’s gone.” The longing and loss that BettySoo conveys in her voice just adds more pathos to the lyrics. On tracks such as ‘The Things She Left Town With’ the music matches the sadness and desperation in the lyrics. Detailing the life of a woman trying to pick herself up from the remnants of a marriage that has failed, the funeral-pace of the song as the story unfolds make the tale even more effective: “A phone with three numbers/One brother and home, an ex-husband who’s long gone left her high low alone”…”A fading memory of love barely holding on/Scarred, bruised and tattered like the skin on her arms.” It’s powerful and given even more substance by the stark musical accompaniment. ‘Josephine’ is even more chilling in a way, the tale of a normal office worker who swops his day job for that of a singing drag queen in the evenings: “Good old Joe becomes lovely Josephine/Still every eye closes when he starts to sing.” It’s another track that can’t fail to impress. “Nothing Heals a Broken Heart’ concerns a mother who has lost her young child. As BettySoo, singing from the mother’s view, details the things that belonged to her child that are left around the house and the task of having to remove their child’s seat from the car, hearts are going to break and not just if you are a parent. It’s a powerful piece of work, again matched perfectly by the production of the track and the playing from the four musicians involved. It’s not all darkness though. Tracks like ‘Wheels’ add some light, not just in their arrangement but also lyrically. It’s a moving on song, one that could only be written by someone who has already taken their share of knocks but knows that there’s “ Nothing like growing older to see where the fists are headed before they land”. ‘When We’re Gone’ is undoubtedly a career-high for BettySoo; there really is no other album dealing in such harrowing subjects so sensitively and effectively and, while the majority of the album visits places many would wish to steer away from, real life is captured so eloquently throughout this album everyone should spend some time there.

Track Listing:-

1 Listen
2 100 Different Ways of Being Alone
3 Last Night
4 Summertime
5 The Things She Left Town With
6 Josephine
7 Hold Tight
8 Love Is Real
9 When We're Gone
10 Nothing Heals a Broken Heart
11 Wheels
12 Lullaby

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/BettySooMusic/
http://www.bettysoo.com/
https://twitter.com/bettysoo
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bettysoomusic

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