Dream From the Deep Well

After a series of personal albums that found her rebuking the patriarchy, leaving bad relationships, and coming out on the other side, Brigid Mae Powers fourth album, Dream from the Deep Well, touches on familiar themes while delving more conspicuously into her folk influences on a set thats bookended by traditional tunes. Opening with an ominous version of the typically playful "I Know Who Is Sick" (at least as popularized by the Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem), it puts a different spin on the anticipation of marriage, with its spare organ drone accompaniment. The other public-domain song, a graceful, strummed "Down by the Glenside," closes the album with an acknowledgment of the bravery of women thats often overlooked in the celebration of men. Approaching the midway point of Dream from the Deep Well is a third cover, this one a languid, piano-and-strings version of Tim Buckleys "I Must Have Been Blind" that delivers lines like "Both of us know how hard it is/To love and let it go" with a plaintive lilt. The rest of the album consists of originals that seem to stay anchored in one way or another to these folk pillars as Power moves deftly between topics including her familys ancestral estate ("The Waterford Song"), a ripped-from-the-headlines tribute to a young teacher who was murdered while jogging ("Ashling"), and her own disillusionment with music and touring life. The latter song, an album highlight titled "Counting Down" ("How long it will be til Im home") is one of a handful of livelier band entries ("The Waterford Song," "Maybe Its Just the Lightning," "Ill Wait Outside for You"), with its touches of electric guitar, keys, an improved piano countermelody, and full drum kit. "Ill Wait Outside for You" and, later, "Some Life Youve Known" even take on a hazy country slant with their pedal steel and aerial vocal harmonies. This is to say that Dream from the Deep Well isnt unvaried or austere, but it is remarkably timeless-feeling as well as soft-spoken -- if only in terms of volume. ~ Marcy Donelson