Life is like a toll booth. Allow MTSU graduate Treva Blomquist to shed some light on that thought.
Walking in the darkness can take its toll / Hard to be sure which way to go. Many paths to take and the choice is mine / Oh, show me the way in these troubled times / To carry the flame, keep it alive / Believe in the Light / Believe in the Light / Dark is only dark until it’s met by light, I’m holding on for a swift sunrise, pleads Blomquist on the ray of hope tune “The Light,” evoking imagery akin to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”
The far-from-cloudy sounds (albeit different tones from more typical Blomquist) found on the genre-defying Snakes & Saints album from the songstress won’t fit in a nutshell, but one thing is for sure: her vocals bloom brightly and slither sweetly into the listener’s ears.
The empowering lead-in song, “Strong,” is about finding your heart and realizing the strength in having your heart show you who you are. Leading off with a tale of learning from and leaving the past behind seems like a smart start. If there is any downside to Saints it’s that the ethereal synthesizer sounds have a tendency at times to overwhelm the vocal purity. While impressive on the production end, that tonal presence just might not be every listener’s cup of tea.
Like many of us lately, the artist has had a lot of time to think. She’s also kept busy; playing lots of live-from-home shows, creating with clay and earning a feature in American Songwriter magazine along the way. She’s even shared the fact that this is the first album for which she had the title before she had the songs. She explains its significance.
“This album is super-close to my heart. I wrote from a place of trying to make sense of disappointment. Snakes & Saints (represents) the idea that we really don’t know, and can’t fully know, the intentions of others. We can only really decide what our intentions will be,” she tells the Pulse. “I don’t have to react to anger with anger. I can react with compassion.
“One of my favorite songs on the album is called ‘Anger.’ It’s about viewing anger like a person who’s walking around in the world just trying to burn things down for no reason. It doesn’t mean that I’m exempt from anger or taking advantage of people—I am still an imperfect human and will do these things,” Blomquist allows. “But seeing clearly and acknowledging mistakes are where we learn best, especially if we can apply mercy and grace instead of shame.
“Snakes & Saints is also the idea that life is not so clear-cut in good versus bad. It’s not—snakes are bad and saints are good. Our goodness and badness isn’t like that. Life is not that simple.”
Elsewhere, “Sorry” is a sure “saints” standout. Here, Blomquist confesses with warmly beckoning, remorseful vocals and lovingly constructed reflections. But ironically the composition is nothing to apologize about. Bonus pulses for the inventive lyric video that Blomquist doodled “straight from my open heart to yours.”
The lovely closing track “Gift” unwraps the idea that perhaps what seems to be brokenness is actually confusion. The father gives a gift, representing life, to the child and the child runs off to play with it. The child decides to bring it back after it breaks, and she finds that she didn’t understand how to use it. It isn’t broken. The father here represents God. God wants us to know we are safe in His hands—the gift just needed the right hands.
All of the album’s 10 tracks were written by Blomquist.
Snakes & Saints pre-orders and merchandise are available on trevamusic.com (vinyl is an option!).
