AMANDA SHIRES
Prolific enlivener of other people’s records returns to centre stage
Choosing a single furrow, and ploughing it rigorously and remorselessly, is one way to become a big name. Entirely to her credit, however, singersongwriter Amanda Shires has permitted a restless curiosity and vivid musical imagination to lead her on a meandering path, often as a collaborator with others – including the Texas Playboys, Shovels & Rope, Todd Snider, Billy Joe Shaver, John Prine, and her husband, Jason Isbell. To The Sunset – to which Isbell contributes guitar – reveals the extent to which these peregrinations have been fieldwork.
Shires’ sixth solo album is her most ambitious and diverse work to date. Probably due to the company she keeps, Shires is generally regarded as an Americana artist, but she leaves it to the last track here, “Wasn’t I Paying Attention”, to deliver anything identifiable as orthodox country.
The rest of To The Sunset roams a vast and scarcely bordered landscape. “Charms” is a deftly sketched vignette evocative of Jenny Lewis or Neko Case, “Eve’s Daughter” a gleeful White Stripes-ish rocker, “Take On The Dark” has something of The Cure about it, and “Parking Lot Pirouette” is a wry, understated power ballad, making the most of both the soaring upper reaches of Shires’ voice on the choruses and the half-spoken deadpan with which she narrates the verses.
There are occasional moments of gratuitous fussiness – most notably in the effects applied to the vocals on such tracks as “Leave It Alone” and “Mirror Mirror”. These feel like unnecessary affectations in and of themselves, and further pose the difficult question of why you’d fiddle around with a voice like Shires’. While nothing on To The Sunset counts as a trough, as such, it’s impossible to avoid noticing that its peaks are the points at which things are kept relatively simple: the mid-paced pop of “Swimmer” and “Break Out The Champagne” sparkles like the best of Belly or The Pretenders.
If all of the above appears to chronicle an expansive palette of influences – and it does, and that isn’t the half of it – such is Shires’ musical universe. To The Sunset suggests that she’s not growing any more inclined to sit still, and is her best yet.