Neon Cross

Albumbeschreibung

Looking like a worn-out VHS porno cover, it doesn’t get much more kitsch than Jaime Wyatt posing as a modern-day cowgirl under an ‘80s neon sign. It’s quite a contrast to the cover of her 2017 EP, Felony Blues, where she is pictured in front of a derelict house in a beige cotton dress. Her new album, Neon Cross released by the brilliant label New West Records which specialises in alternative country music, reveals how the musician from rainy Washington state is a completely changed woman. The change is indeed personal and not artistic since, at 34 years of age, this is only her first real album. A few years ago, Jaime was convicted for robbing her heroin dealer. She sings openly about her struggle with alcohol, heroin, meth, coke and all that comes with it, on Neon Cross. She also touches upon coming out as gay after her divorce, losing her father in 2018 and then losing her close friend to an overdose. But it’s true what they say, the best country albums (whether rock or not) find inspiration in negative thoughts, times of hardship, heartbreak and above all, self-acceptance – and this lady has had enough to turn her into a hard-core outlaw singer like Lucinda Williams and Chrissie Hynde. Shooter Jennings has produced this album efficiently, with no frills. On Hurt So Bad, Wyatt sings a duet with the son of Waylon Jennings, the former king of outlaw who passed away in 2002. Emotions are then heightened as she is joined by outlaw country queen Jessi Colter, Shooter’s mother and Waylon’s widow, who sings a lovely little harmony on Just a Woman. And as if this tsunami of emotions wasn’t already enough, Neil Casal, who took his own life in August 2019, can be heard playing guitar, harmonica and Wurlitzer in what turned out to be one of his very last recording sessions. Jaime Wyatt then concludes this brilliant opus hoping to provide some sort of catharsis with her cover of Dax Riggs’ Demon Tied To A Chair In My Brain. With a bit of classic rock, country rock, honky-tonk and a touch of pedal-steel and fiddle, this is an album without compromise to the whims of today’s sounds. It’s hard to find music more upfront-and-personal than this. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz