CD Review: Jolie Holland The Living and the Dead

This fourth album from one of the Be Good Tanya’s is a ripper.

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Holland’s catchy melodies and insightful lyrics have your foot tapping from the get-go – opener Mexico City has the lyric that gives the album its title, and it just gets better from there. Taking up vocal, guitar and drumming duties, Holland proves that she has more strings to her bow than just an able voice and song writing ability, which is refreshing because to this reviewer she is the consummate musician – talent for Africa.

Strangely she has been boxed in the alternative country category, but I would disagree and say that she crosses many boundaries of musical endeavour, and would fit into several other categories – country (Sweet Loving Man), folk (Love Henry), the periphery of blues (maybe), as well as rock. Maybe critics put her in that genre due to her Texan background, however that would be doing Holland a disservice.

She kind of reminds me of a gender-reversed version of a certain music legend from Freehold, New Jersey, but maybe a little more polished vocally.

 A female Bruce Springsteen? Not quite, but certainly well on her way to finding her place in the eclectic, and somewhat overcrowded musical landscape.