Joana Serrat - Cross the Verge

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 30 / 5 / 2016

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Review

The vocals on the opening song on Joana Serrat’s third album are so fragile that you feel you dare not move for fear of upsetting or breaking anything. The title of the haunting ‘Lonely Heart Reverb’, the song in question, tells you all that is needed really. Try to imagine the Cocteau Twins draped in a fragile lace blanket of Mazzy Star songs and maybe, just maybe you’re part of the way there. It’s a beautiful, almost painfully beautiful, start to an extraordinary album from the Barcelona-based singer/songwriter. But it shouldn’t really come as any great surprise; ’Flowers on the Hillside’, the opening cut of 2014’s ‘Dear Great Canyon’ was also a brilliant choice as an introduction to the talents of this young, unique artist. For her first release on the Loose Music label Joana travelled to Montreal, Canada to work with former Arcade Fire drummer Howard Bilerman, now an acclaimed record producer, at his Hotel2Tango studio there. Basia Bulat who has recently released her fourth album, Good Advice’ which deserves to be checked out and who has worked with Bilerman in the past features on the album as do Neil Halstead (Slowdive, Mojave 3) and Ryan Boldt (The Deep Dark Woods) who both duet with Joana on ‘Cross the Verge’. Admittedly there’s a touch of the Cowboy Junkies weaving in and out of these songs too at times, but that’s hardly a bad thing especially when producer Bilerman has allowed Joana’s songs to breath more freely than they were afforded to on her previous releases. In reality there is only one word needed to describe the songs on ‘Cross The Verge’ and that’s beautiful. ‘Oh, Winter Comes’, where the acoustic guitars are as delicate as Joana’s breathy vocals, is simply stunning. The wordless backing vocals are surely the work of a choir of angels; the ethereal quality of the performance is spine- chilling. It’s a remarkable piece of work and worth the price of the album alone. In contrast the rasping guitar that introduces ‘Tug of War’, the following song, fills in the spaces between Joana’s still breathy yet now strangely determined vocals and adds an equal amount of atmosphere to the song as the singer’s own words. It’s just one more example of how astute the choice of producer was. Joana also shows that her vocals are not always fragile on songs like ‘I Follow You Child’, this time complimenting some spaghetti-western inspired guitar lines. The banjo, placed lower in the mix, lends a understated country sheen making the song a unique hybrid of sounds but one that sounds so natural. The duet with Ryan Boldt, ‘Black Love’, as the title suggests, shows a darker side of Joana’s music. Although her vocal contribution still sounds like it’s drifted down from the clouds, compared to Boldt’s gritty delivery, Bilerman has captured the dark beauty in the song brilliantly, again with the instruments articulating just as much as the lyrics. Neil Halstead’s duet is a more poppy affair; ‘Cloudy Heart’ is the most straightforward pop song on the album. It’s a bright and breezy diversion and one, which given the exposure, would extend Joana’s fan base without a doubt. There’s a distinct country feel to at least a couple of tracks, ‘Solitary Road’ being one. It’s proof that Joana could have cut a straight country/Americana album with ease and gained a wider audience in doing so, but it’s also testament to her talents that she can take elements from established genres to feed her own musical vision and create such a captivating but at times haunting sound. The title track is another example of where the spaces between vocals are used to stunning effect. At just one minute and thirty seconds the closing song, ‘Your Gold Could Be Mine’, is just Joana’s haunting, fragile vocals with acoustic guitar backing and showcases that even shorn of Bilerman’s production techniques at the end of the day it’s those beguiling vocals and Joana’s songwriting skills that ultimately make the album. ‘Cross the Verge’ is yet another brilliant collection of songs on a label that we’ve come to expect only the best from, if there’s any justice left in this world then this will be the album that gets Joana Serrat’s music across to the wider audience it so rightly deserves.

Track Listing:-

1 Lonely Heart Reverb
2 Saskatoon (Break Of Dawn)
3 Cloudy Heart
4 Flags
5 Desert Valley
6 Lover
7 Oh, Winter Come
8 Tug Of War
9 I Follow You Child
10 Black Lake
11 Solitary Road
12 Cross The Verge
13 Your Gold Could Be Mine

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/JoanaSerrat
https://twitter.com/JoanaSerrat
https://www.instagram.com/joanaserrat/

Label Links:-

http://loosemusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/loosemusic
https://twitter.com/looseMusic
http://www.last.fm/user/Loose_Music
https://www.youtube.com/loosemusic
https://instagram.com/loose_music/