Thespian turned Americana heroine AMY SPEACE turned a whole lotta heads – including this writer's - with her debut album 'Songs For Bright Street'. It ran the gamut from tough to tender with style to spare and suggested its' creator was actually deserving of being mentioned in the same hallowed breath as the likes of Lucinda Williams and Roseanne Cash.
Speace's sophomore release, 'The Killer In Me' suggests she's keen to both consolidate and continue pushing forward. Still on hand are her trusty and inventive group The Tearjerks, featuring lead guitarist and producer James Mastro, although this time former REM producer Mitch Easter engineers. The Jayhawks' Gary Louris is absent this time around, although Mott The Hoople's Ian Hunter weighs in with a couple of gravelly duets and the immortally-named Kernersville Librarians' Choir (!) are roped in at one point. But more of that anon.
As with 'Songs For Bright Street', there's plenty to satisfy purists and renegades alike. Anyone desirous of quality, emotional bloodletting will be delighted with the slowburning ache of the title track, the chiming roots-imbued anthems like 'This Love' and the woman-scorned restlessness of 'Better'. Superior acoustic confessionals rear their pretty head too, with the sparse likes of 'Haven't Learned A Thing' clearly originating from lessons meted out at the school of hard knocks.
Once again, though, Speace and co. are keen to stretch the Americana-tinged boundaries. Sure, both 'Would I Lie?' and 'I Met My Love' are steeped in country, yet both present fascinating hybridised approaches. The former rushes along a rattling rockabilly rhythm, but mainlines on a punky aggression and a contemporary lyrical bent (“I'm angrier than I've ever been/ 'cause we're all throwing punches to the wind”) many of us can empathise with right now. 'I Met My Love', meanwhile, again has Ian Hunter growling away in support and seems overtly country on the surface, yet it has a bouncy, Eddy Cochran-style delivery and some great N'Awlins-influenced piano from John Bauer.
Elsewhere, it's often when Speace wanders even further off the recognised Alt. Country map that she really hits the spot. Thanks to a winning combination of wah-wah guitars, trombones, a smoky atmosphere and Jagoda's crisp drumming, 'Blue Horizon' is as close to Portishead territory as anything obviously Americana-related. 'Storm Warning' is even ghostlier and funky with Mastro's ARP strings and spectral guitars setting up the perfect melancholy atmosphere for Speace's anti-war commentary (“the telegram they brought today was brief and featherweight/ it said you'd died a soldier with a brave and quiet grace”). It's a perfect portrayal of love, loss and war wrapped up tight, yet still bleeding profusely.
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The experimentation is infectious and kicks in again on 'Dirty Little Secret', where an apparently regular acoustic confessional is soon hi-jacked by a sitar, Jagoda's lunkheaded bursts of drumming and Mastro's subtle mellotron. Oh, and also an appearance by the enigmatic Kernersville Librarians' Choir I mentioned earlier. See, I told you they'd be wheeled out before I wrapped the review up.
Curiously, despite the wall to wall quality, Speace adds perhaps the album's finest moment as an afterthought. 'Weight of The World's isn't even listed as an official track on the sleeve and kicks in a good 30 seconds after the 'last' tune, 'Piece By Piece' has wound down. However, it's an intimate and vulnerable acoustic guitar and vocal excursion and its' explicit Iraq bereavement storyboard (“he went from the Land of the Free/ to being afraid, in disbelief”) is devastating, regardless of whether it's personal or not. I suspect it may well be.
'The Killer In Me', then, more than cements Amy Speace's reputation as one of Americana's most promising new talents. The most radical moments here, though, suggest she'll not be slow in continuing to take roots-related shapes and twist them to her own ends. Where she'll go from here will be fascinating to behold.
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