Through the bittersweet turbulence of loving and leaving, and with the baggage of angst and doubt flying along too, sits Nashville-turned-Arkansas native singer/songwriter Treva Blomquist’s newest album, These Fading Things, released in June this year out of Compass Sound Studio in Nashville. Sitting so comfortably so, it’s almost wise for any freshly-dumped fellow left at the gate to listen for an enlightening glimpse inside the head of his freshly flown gal, and Blomquist presents the process of moving on and finding another in almost perfect chronological order in, this, her third studio release.
There’s a healthy-sized number of musicians betwixt the hired help and her original backing band, The Suits, creating the well-known Nashville brand of country music achieved on These Fading Things but accompanied with accents of a somber cello or a grungy organ and heavy slide guitar as well as Blomquist’s soulfully angelic voice.
Right off the runway, Blomquist sings how relationships can head south quickly and never recover if all the right variables are present. Dark subject matter starting off, but the third track, “So Wrong for You,” stands out as such a dirty country/blues anthem for finally going solo but leads you into songs struggling with regret and loneliness such as “I Write the Book” and a rendition of “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” you might hear at the end of a cowboy-into-the-sunset movie one day.
But people live on after severed ties and find their own paths back to happiness as heard in the latter half of These Fading Things, in songs such as the catchy-pop, upbeat “Live a Little,” with Blomquist honing in on her toy piano chops, or the epitome of a Nashville-produced country-rock song, “Change.” It’s surprisingly uplifting but the masterpiece of the album and throwback to its sour sentiments is the closing track, “Nobody’s Fault,” which lyrically regresses to a breakup but musically takes a thoughtful second to arrange as the dichotomy between the slide electric and the cello. This is a good explanation of why this particular song was chosen for the finale.
Treva Blomquist may be an Arkansan now but she’s still known to play around Nashville, most recently at Bluebird Café this summer. Her tour schedule will take her out West for a string of California dates in mid-October but These Fading Things, as well as updated tour information and past albums, are available at trevamusic.com or trevamusic.bandcamp.com.
