OFFICIAL: http://www.gracefreeman.net/
Written
by David Shouse, posted by blog admin
Few
talents appear on the scene as complete and well rounded as nineteen year old
Grace Freeman. Her debut solo release Shadow is an eleven song studio release
that illustrates the same talent listeners first met on The Moon Police’s 2015
album The Lost Go Sailing By while expanding on that with a collection of
extraordinary versatility. There’s definitely a strong strain of Americana or
roots music influence informing the songs, but Freeman’s original compositions
never content themselves with pursuing a single stylistic bent. She moves
adeptly from solo performances to much more full fledged band efforts and both
approaches produce substantive results in Freeman’s hands. Despite her youth,
Grace Freeman navigates her way through each of these songs with total
confidence in both the material and her performance. The superb production
underlines it all with its balance between singing and instrumentation.
Freeman’s
performance on “Oliver” is largely solo, accompanied only by understated
acoustic guitar, but there are some light ambient touches that add just a
dollop of color and a smattering of backing vocals that invoke a haunted spirit
moving in the heart of the song. It is one of the more thoughtful compositions
on Shadow and begins the album on an auspicious note despite its obvious lack
of sonic firepower. There’s a much more deliberate build investing the song “Shadow”.
The most notable difference is that Freeman trades in her acoustic guitar for
some exceptionally beautiful piano playing, but it also features the fullest
arrangement yet on the album. The rhythm section, especially the drumming,
gives this performance impetus that the opener lacked. There’s a light amount
of repetition in “Trying to Say Goodbye” that nicely embodies the persistence
of its emotions and the jaunty bounce provided by her piano playing, reminiscent
of Regina Spektor’s work, hits a completely different note than the comparatively
darker lyrics.
There’s
a nicely understated country music influence filtering through “Another Long
Night” and the entertaining, idiosyncratic qualities of Freeman’s voice are
particularly effective for the writing. There is a lightly nasal quality in her
singing but, rather than robbing it of its musicality, it enhances the
vulnerability of her performance. She takes another stylistic turn with the
song “Dreams” and its exotic flair from the acoustic guitar work seems to
inspire Freeman’s singing to new heights. Her language is uniquely sharp –
there isn’t a single wasted word and her invocation of specific imagery is
quite powerful. There’s a plethora of emotions lighting up the song “God Forbid”,
but the sarcastic side of her songwriting is impossible to ignore. She doesn’t
allow any bile to creep into her singing, however, and imparts the same vulnerability
to this performance characterizing those before and following it. “Gemini” ends
Shadow on a breezy yet profoundly intelligent note and has the same musical
richness shaping its trajectory that defines the earlier tunes. Shadow is a
memorable eleven songs that never miss once and the highly musical
assertiveness she carries through every line of this album.
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