For comfort and assured good listening, it’s worth adding a throwback from last year’s to this year’s early springtime releases. Caitlin Rose, Nashville’s premier vintage-country-driven singer/songwriter, released her sophomore full-length, The Stand-In, in March of 2013. Over the past year, The Stand-In has left its mark not only on Nashville’s music scene, but on many a listener across the globe, as Rose has spent the ensuing time touring most of this continent and Europe to promote the album that TIME magazine, SPIN, Rolling Stone, CMT, and The New York Times (the list goes on), have highly acclaimed since its release.
On her debut full-length, Own Side Now, it’s easy to tell Rose has a well-trained voice and a good idea of where she wants to go with it, but on The Stand-In, she took that good idea and strapped rockets to its roller skates; vulnerable in a soothing fashion, like on “Pink Champagne”—written about one final night before two lover are separated forever—as well as howling emotion in a mature, soulful fashion reminiscent of The Felice Brothers’ “Dallas,” which was written as a take of a life on the road. The lyric content on The Stand-In is very similar to Own Side Now, both offering an honest, poetically well-written glimpse into a young lady’s life, though Rose did delve deeper into her never-dull vocal range on this round.
Besides Rose’s distinct, Neko-Case-meets-Zooey-Deschanel vocal styling, the musical composition of The Stand-In can stand on its own in instrumental terms both emotively and technically, as all 12 tracks feature a lineup of skilled, no-bullshit musicians, including longtime bandmates Spencer Cullum on the pedal steel and Jeremy Fetzer on guitar, aided by supporting players on banjo, Hammond organ, drums, piano and mandolin.
“I Was Cruel,” about an ill-matched relationship’s lessons, sounds like everyone in the room is obviously on the same page yet individually each in their own little world of picking and punching. (During the bridge, after Cullum’s slide solo, there’s a intertwined banjo-and-mandolin response that makes the whole song. Yes.) And, it’s all sans staleness. There is something unique in each song outside of that great instrumental lineup, be it sit-ins with The Jayhawks’ Gary Louris on “Only a Clown,” the string sections employed on several of the tracks, and a sweet New Orleans lounge trumpet on the final track, “Old Numbers.” All add variety to every individual track without losing Rose’s old-fashioned country charm.
Go ahead and put it on your to-get list—or gift list.
For more on Caitlin Rose, visit thecaitlinrose.com.
