In The Air

Album review

On her 2018 debut full-length, If Only There Was a River, singer/songwriter Anna St. Louis stuck to soft, woodsy folk-country tones and simple, earthy arrangements for her songs of love and searching. Led by St. Louis' amber-hued voice, the songs of If Only There Was a River held echoes of Karen Dalton's elegant sadness and Neil Young's rusty wisdom along with the trappings of traditional country songwriting. Five years later, sophomore album In the Air feels cut from a new cloth, with upgraded production turns and more-sophisticated arrangements bringing the strengths of St. Louis' songs into clearer focus. After beginning with a dreamy intro, "Phone" snaps into a soft rock groove complete with tight backing vocal harmonies and twinkly interplay between electric piano, organ, and synth. "Morning" takes a page straight from Dusty Springfield's all-time classic Dusty in Memphis, bringing together country shuffling, soul sweetness, and orchestral strings for one of the album's most upbeat and immediately gratifying moments. The chorus of backing vocals and slippery string lines that slide playfully through the chorus add the extra spoonful of sugar that makes an already strong song even better. The pedal steel, bleary organ, and precisely placed backing vocals on "Better Days" fill out what might have been a less captivating tune if it had a more skeletal arrangement.
Not everything on In the Air is as ornamented as some of its standouts, but even subtler moments feel less minimal than earlier work. The creaky ballad "Sad Eyes" comes on like a spare lament, but understated organ, slide guitar, and mumbly male vocals slowly creep into the mix underneath St. Louis' commanding vocals and acoustic guitar strums. "Soft Cities" is similar, starting off with ambling guitar and vocals, but steadily introducing new sounds as the song plays out. The songs for In the Air were written over a period of time when St. Louis was taking a break from performing, and living quietly in upstate New York. There's a sense of consideration that touches every aspect of the album and reflects what could have been happening in St. Louis' mind as she spent silent nights refining ideas in a solitary creative bubble. In the Air never rushes or overstates, regardless of how swooping the arrangements could be or how grand a production move could come across. Instead, it's as metered and thoughtful as St. Louis' earlier, more stripped-down efforts, keeping the songwriting as the focal point, regardless of how impressive and beautiful the sonic details surrounding the songs might be.

© Fred Thomas /TiVo