ALBUM REVIEW: Johanna Warren – Lessons For Mutants | NARC. | Reliably Informed | Music and Creative Arts News for Newcastle and the North East

Narc. Magazine Online

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Wax Nine Records

Released: 07.10.22

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Johanna Warren’s sixth solo album since 2013. The singer-songwriter moved from L.A. to Wales, started recording on tape, and her style became barer with years. I’d Be Orange, the opening track, is a sweetly exuberant guitar song reminiscent of anti-folk and early Beck (in his more melodic moments). It is unlike any of the other tracks on the album.

Most of Warren’s (love) songs carry within them a barely concealed gloom – a pleading, indefinable sadness. Some of them are comparable, in their openness, to the confessional ballads of Marissa Nadler (with whom Warren previously toured). Warren’s chameleonic voice keeps changing and wavering; sometimes it sounds strained and ghostly, and other times it returns – in its full, amazing presence.

 

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