The Wine-Dark Sea: A Novel - Historical Fiction & Adventure Book for Literature Lovers | Perfect for Book Clubs & Greek Mythology Enthusiasts

It's been a couple of weeks since this came out - enough time for its qualities to become apparent. It's terrific! Not unprecedented in Jolie Holland's body of work, it builds, rather, on the strengths of the previous albums, consolidates them with a great confidence and elan, and extends them into some new sonic territory. Yes, the electronic squalls are dramatic and enrich the color of some of the songs, but they're just one element, and it's all in service of the voice, in the end - the free-form band passages untether the voice from the song structures and allow it a new range and latitude. The analog might be how going electric allowed Dylan's voice to go new places and do unprecedented things. Jolie's voice reigns here, it's a lovely instrument. Listen to "On and On," the first track - she alights on the "t" at the end of words with the precision of a bee sting ("let me love you like I wanT") and with the softness of a drop of rain merging into water ("be gentle with my hearT"). The guitars propel it along with their own momentum and urgency - it's all of a piece. The transtion to the second track - the sweet piano - lets you know there will be a range of sounds here, (the album's kind of like a juke-box) - that they're all love songs gives the album a unity, presided over by the commanding vocals. Get this one!