ALC: Beyond the Bloodhounds- Adia Victoria

[cestuneblague]

Okay so I didn't really know what to do this week so I decided to look for a Nashville artist beyond of course our beloved Otto Man and decided to put forth one of the more... "off-nashville" types that's been generating a lot of buzz recently:

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Beyond The Bloodhounds by Adia Victoria


While this is indeed a bit on the poppier side (though I never see this as something that's going to be a mass-appeal favorite), this has been one of the more intriguing listens as of late. It's indeed an album that's a bit tough to pigeonhold- there is a tiny bit of country and is a personal though still quite stylized and at times surreal singer/songwriter record, but it's less interested in a twangy or upfront, confessional sound than it is going through the troubled history of the south and the southern singer's own troubled background in a strict, religious upbringing. I guess the best way to describe it as blues-y, though it doesn't view that style with boundaries and with a much more modern take on that particular style. Though really the stories she tells are just as complicated, personal and daring just as her skills as a rather eclectic composer allow to give the music much more vibrancy and room to breathe than some of the modern, more strictly blues/adult contemporary singer-songwriter albums allow. I think she still has a lot of room to grow, but as a debut album it's a very, very promising work from an immense new talent in the Nashville scene- well beyond the Printer's Alley machine.

[RoundTheBend]

She has a fantastic voice. A small tease, a lot of that melancholy... nice balance.

I do feel like the music and the vocals doesn't really match well... stylistically yes, but something about the phrasing doesn't really match well for me. Feels like the backing band maybe wasn't connecting or vice versa.

Still worth the listen, but probably wouldn't remember to come back for more.