From lamb to lion, from whisper to roar—that’s the best way to describe the transition that has taken place in Shea Seger in the nine years since her debut album, The Mae Street Project. Right out of the gate, her voice set her apart. She was compared to Lucinda Williams, but for some reason whenever I played her music for people, they heard Alanis Morrissette. She quietly crooned with a wounded warble over well produced, trip-hop influenced alternative pop.

 

When The Mae Street Project came out, I was proud to be a fan. But then Seger seemingly disappeared. After 5 or 6 years, a Shea Seger MySpace page emerged with two acoustic songs, then a Facebook page, and like a thief in the night, she released her new album online in late July. There was no media blitz, no slew of updates or wall posts. It just happened quietly, a few days after the relaunch of her official website. A link appeared on the site directing fans to buy the new album, Shea Seger, on iTunes. It may be easy to miss in this over-saturated marketplace, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you let this record slip by under your radar.

 

Everything about this record is liberating. Shea Seger is real, raw, American roots rock, overflowing with blues and country inflections that showcase Seger’s weathered yet resilient voice. Her snarl offers a sweet, sweaty catharsis and she does the blues proud, makes it rock and roll like it did in juke joints more than half a century ago. The passion and pain you hear never overwhelm her voice, and it’s her voice that carries the weight of these emotional, secular hymns. Seger’s lyrics are loaded with admissions of resignation, misguided errors and failure, but these themes are undercut with a resolve that seems beyond her years. This is music for people who’ve lived to tell their tale when others have broken down or given up. The album is shy of fifty minutes in length, and it goes by in a flash thanks to the variety of songs, from stark acoustic eulogies to boot stompin’ blues romps. Seger’s pleas to unreliable lovers and a jaded, jagged world are revelatory. She doesn’t steal your heart, she tugs at it relentlessly until you surrender. That’s what great music is supposed to do to you. A+ | Willie E. Smith

 

RIYL: Ike and Tina Turner, Janis Joplin, Joan Osborne, KT Tunstall, Amy Winehouse, Shelby Lynne, Joss Stone