'I can't seem to stop lookin' behind,' Lindsey White sings on '20/20', the first song on her demo entitled 'What's New.' It may be that fairly soon Lindsey will find it impossible to look anywhere else but forward. The up and coming folk musician has made a record that breathes, grows and demands to be heard.
'20/20' signals the beginning of a new journey. It's a bluesy, catchy road trip that at first begs for the strength to start fresh and then rejoices when the past is left in the dust. The desolation we experience at the beginning may come from a lack of direction, a nagging impulse we all have to cling to what we've done when we should be looking to what we can do. It is an opening that seems tough to follow, but in the end it is a piece of a bigger, beautiful picture.
'Epitoh Me' opens with the suggestion of lethargy, a second thought, maybe it's too hard. Guitar falls across the track like heavy rain, so heavy that it weighs down hope. Lindsey's voice rarely reaches above the whispering guitar, but somehow remains powerful. On 'Sobriety' White lets her golden voice shine. Her confident, gorgeous delivery matches the message of the song, where it seems the character has found their footing. 'Come on try to figure me out...it's all clear now,' she sings, assured that she has reached the destination she so desperately sought as she drove along a muted highway with a rusted steering wheel on '20/20.' She challenges others to do the same.
'What's New' concludes with two gems. 'New' sees Lindsey White slow it down, where adept piano and her vocals mingle to create an affecting, powerful ballad about loss and redemption. 'There's hope for you, my friend' she cries. White's lyrics are remarkable throughout the album showing maturity and depth, but here they shine. When the song shifts near the end, crawling back into consciousness from what seemed to be the end, White sings 'see, I'm doing a new thing, in the desert, in the wasteland,' and it is a captivating moment of revelation. White leaves us with 'Renegade,' a spectacular song that shows White once again as an abundantly talented lyricist ('they say lay it down, lock it up, breathe it in, scream it out, get it all out of here'), musician and vocalist. 'Renegade' boasts the kind of epic quality songwriting that stands as a phenomenal album closer.
'What's New' is a story told through music. It is an intense, unabashedly personal album. It chronicles Lindsey's own journey from a place she's finally able to leave behind to who she is now, a talented songstress with nothing but open road ahead of her. And that's what's new.
~ David Alexander Robertson (ashesrise (at) email.com)
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