Since Eliza’s 2000 debut for RedHouse Records (‘Hard Times in Babylon’), she’s gone from strength to strength with a string of successful albums including a grammy nomination, and a host of artists including Roseanne Cash, Tom Rush & Joan Baez recording and covering her songs.
Over the past 12 years or so, Eliza’s social conscience and political angles have really come to the fore, giving her songs an instant appeal, but with a genuine emotional and intellectual impact.
Her recent collaboration with label mates Lucy Kaplansky and John Gorka led to the folk ‘super-group’ Redhorse that appears to have fuelled Eliza to create her best and most consistent album in years. It’s perhaps worthy of note that both Gorka and Kaplansky appear on backing vocals across the disc.
Over the course of the 10 songs on ‘Roses at the End of Time’, she uses her instantly likeable melodies and vocal delivery to convey her stories and emotions. She certainly covers a full range of emotions and issues here, with the political and the personal intermingling and delivering both a stinging edge and a real sensitivity for human relationships.
It’s all within her usual folk-roots style, with a good range of variety on offer, ‘Death in Arkansas’ is an old-timey banjo driven song, ‘Looking for a Place’ is as rocky and song as she’s recorded, and the closer ‘Once I Had a Home’ has a hymnal quality that shows her songwriting at it’s very best. While 2153 might appear to be a throwaway lightweight song, one listen to the lyrics shows that this is not just satire, but sharp commentary that will certainly set the listener thinking!
Track listing
1 Blue Moon Night
2 Death in Arkansas
3 Looking for a Place
4 Roses at the End of Time
5 Slouching Towards Bethlehem
6 Belle of the Ball
7 Vayan al Norte
8 2153
9 Midnight on Raton
10 Once I had a Home
review 23 April 2011
