Flying With Angels

When Suzanne Vega released her debut album in 1985, she was a smart, fresh new voice from New York Citys urban folk scene, clearly inspired by great singer/songwriters of the past while possessing a style and point of view all her own. Forty years later, she has matured into an eminence grise in whats now called contemporary folk, having influenced a number of notable artists herself. If time has changed how listeners look at Vega and her work, as a writer and performer shes refined her style without changing much at the core -- then as now, shes a storyteller with a keen eye and a clever, stylish turn of phrase, and she knows how to integrate elements of pop into her recordings without betraying the clean lines of her tunes. 2025s Flying with Angels is Vegas first set of original songs since 2014s Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles (not counting 2016s Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, the score to her one-woman show), and if shes not as prolific as she once was, it finds her writing and singing with her usual level of skill and intelligence, and even adding some new colors to her palette. "Lucinda" is a fan letter to Lucinda Williams whose mostly spoken lyrics and insistent bassline suggest rap without sounding embarrassing, "Love Thief" is a sensual number with an R&B-informed arrangement that could fit easily into the quiet storm hour, and "Rats" sounds like it could have come from a lost 1979 new wave album with its buzzy guitars, organ squeals, and playful lyrics about the gritty side of New York life. "Chambermaid" is a witty character study about the woman who cleans up after a great artist, fittingly set to the tune of Bob Dylans "I Want You," and "Speakers Corner" ruefully weighs the positives and negatives of a culture of loudly expressed opinions, especially when the alarmists turn out to be right after all. Elsewhere, Vega is in familiar but fine form on Flying with Angels, with Gerry Leonards production favoring the melodies with mature, committed folk-rock, and the closer, "Galway," is a gem, a story of what could have been thats warm, poignant, and entirely unforced. Like the best of the artists who influenced her, Suzanne Vega is an artist who was built for the long haul, and Flying with Angels is impressive and satisfying in its craft and distinctive outlook -- her songs made her stand out from her peers in 1985, and they still do in 2025. ~ Mark Deming

溌溂颯爽としたフォーク・ロック曲"Speakers' Corner"で幕が開く11年ぶりのアルバム。混迷の時代に対して物申す楽曲が全体を占めていることもあってヘヴィーなギター・ロック系なども散見できるが、血気盛んな姿勢に痛快さを覚えるというか、表現者として常に前進し続ける意思が色濃く反映されているのがとにかく頼もしい。ヴォーカルも変わらず若々しいしね。
bounce (C)桑原シロー