The Day

Harmonies shine on I’m With Her’s new album

- By LINDSEY TANNER

Feels like fate must have brought together three already successful alt-folk musicians whose angel voices blend as seamlessly as their strings. The lovely sounds of I’m With Her — the trio of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins — are on splendid display in the group’s first full-length album, “See You Around.”

The product of a marathon songwritin­g session in a Vermont barn and recorded mostly live, the album has a warm, intimate feel even when the I’m With Her undertones are melancholy.

On 12 tunes, the trio swaps lead vocals and guitar instrument­als in tales of love won, lost and in between. Jarosz’s soulful mandolin, a stellar fiddle from Watkins (Nickel Creek) and subtle synth and piano from O’Donovan (Crooked Still) add layered texture.

Jarosz opens the title track in her clear, earthy soprano, a beautiful breakup song with lilting, lush harmonies that make this the one to put on rewind.

Another standout is Gillian Welch’s “Hundred Miles,” a hardship road tale that has Watkins starting off starkly a cappella, her bandmates and instrument­s joining in at a typically languid Welch pace.

That pacing continues on “Ryland (Under the Apple Tree),” a more upbeat story of summertime pleasures punctuated by O’Donovan’s breathy rasp-tinged voice.

The bluegrass-y instrument­al “Waitsfield” opens with a jaunty fiddle and raises a question: Might the title refer to the bucolic Vermont village of the same name? Maybe it was even where the ladies ventured to replenish their supply of Heady Topper beer — the only time, the liner notes say — that they left their songwritin­g seclusion. GAME NIGHT (R) ............................................. 1:10, 4:10, 7:10 THE SHAPE OF WATER (R) ........................... 1:00, 4:00, 7:00 BLACK PANTHER (PG13) 12:45, 3:45, 6:45 PETER RABBIT (PG) 1:15, 4:15, 7:15 THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING (R) 1:05, 4:05, 7:05

 ??  ??
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States