New Time Religion

[May 12th, 2004] Every job has its own share of occupational hazards. Farmers lose limbs, office workers sitting at computers pack on the pounds, and traditional singer-songwriters start thinking they live in the 1850s.

The poster child for the condition is Gillian Welch, a youngish singer-songwriter and L.A. native who entered a time warp and exited with tales of miners and stillhouses, all set to that grainy twang of music's old-time religion. Then there's Jay Farrar, of Uncle Tupelo fame, who weaves modernities such as cloning and the Cold War into his tales but sticks to the antique sound of the old, degrading West.

This movement might seem quaint, but it sounds a bit too contrived. Yet not all the artists you'll find in the pages of No Depression magazine suffer from this affliction. Ryan Adams, for example, is one of the recovered, with his sudden, marked shift from Whiskeytown balladeer to bratty Paul Westerberg-basher who named his most notable release of 2003 Rock 'N' Roll.

At about the same time Adams released himself into the rock world, Erin McKeown, another young songwriter, also departed from the traditional to explore new sonic ground on Grand. Don't be mistaken: This is more than just another boastfully titled album.

It's the third full-length release from Virginia-born McKeown. This time out, she trades in the traditional spare acoustic fare of her earlier work for a broad palette of 20th-century popular music. The breadth of the album nears disorientation as McKeown dabbles in twee indie-pop ("Slung-lo"), swing ("The Taste of You"), alt-rock ("Cinematic"), country ("Envelopes of Glassine") and more.

"I think it's much easier to make an album like Grand where you just kind of do what you want," says McKeown in a phone interview from her Massachusetts home. "That's the theme of the album. To do whatever you want."

The 26-year-old's no-boundaries approach is odd within the singer-songwriter genre. She has already ventured further than such popular contemporaries as Josh Ritter and Sondre Lerche. McKeown is showing herself to be a more developed musician, one who can dismiss rules and still create an album that's satisfying and diverse.

But the main reason for McKeown's success seems a bit, well, old-fashioned. She possesses something Welch and Farrar don't--a lyrical voice that's rich enough not to stay pigeonholed into any single style.

Lyrically, McKeown pushes the irreverent with lines such as "I begin with Culver City/ Where the handsome faggots make pretty pretty" in "Cinematic." Then she adopts the more traditional Welch-like stance, delivering it with a punch of irony in "How to Be a Lady": "If you want to be a lady/ Have a look at me/ Folks line up for days/ Just to have a look-see."

If her lyrics exhibit the wit of a Brown graduate, her voice shows her beauty. McKeown's delivery is matter-of-fact and mostly unaffected, her lips barely touching to create the most slight percussives, her inflection dictated by the song. The piano part on the ballad "Vera" may be beautifully arranged, but the showcase instrument is McKeown's voice, the way her pure alto purr at once demands attention and weaves its way into the specific style of the song.

The success of each song on Grand--aside from the short instrumental "Starlit"--hangs on McKeown's ability to inhabit it comfortably with her voice. She shows off her range with the riot-grrrl vocals of "Cinematic" or the sass and brass of "The Taste of You." Her willingness to use her voice in these different ways is what ultimately gives the singer the freedom to shed labels. Along the way, she delves into parts of her music and life that might be off-limits if she confined herself to traditional subjects like coal mines or old-time religion.

"When Grand was finished, I felt like I had taken everything out of my closet, gotten everything out of the corners of my house and put it out," McKeown says, while talking about the new songs she'll play Sunday at Lola's Room. "Everything for this new record is coming from a new and fresh place, which is extremely exciting."