Angie McMahon – Salt
AWAL – Out Now
Angie McMahon is a walking contradiction, a smiling 24-year-old who roars like a lion, a gentle folk singer who rocks with raw abandon, a guarded thinker who wears her heart on her sleeve. Salt is an album that sets out those electric contradictions for everyone to see and hear. She’s taken the slow road since winning a talent contest in 2013, where the prize was becoming the opener on Bon Jovi’s Australian tour.
It took another four years for her first single, Slow Mover to come out. The yin and yang of her music was apparent even then. From the simple strum of an electric guitar to a band with bass and drums Slow Mover recounts relationships that aren’t always a happy-love-fest as she recounts, “We sometimes fit, but we always lie, And he thinks we could make it work, but only when he’s drunk.” Not exactly a picture of domestic bliss.
The Angie you see on the cover of Salt appears to be one of those singer songwriters with a happy little chirp. Yet the reality is quite different. Her voice is much stronger and smokier than you would expect. There are also levels of honesty and pain that one doesn’t expect.
Being brutally direct is one thing you can count on from McMahon. The single, Pasta, opens with, “My bedroom is a disaster, My dog has got kidney failure, I’ve been sitting at the bar too much, Kissing people in my head…” She has an offhand way of singing these lines before the song ignites, but eventually, the sense of being lost takes over as the song slows to a crawl.
Somehow she is able to wrest a truckload of emotion from her electric guitar. When she plays you can feel the confusion that is at the heart of Standout. It’s not easy to sing a line as truthful as, “Oh I don’t want someone, But I do yeah.” And there’s real pain in the lines that follow as she repeats, “I wanted you you you.”
Closing the album, If You Call floats in on an acoustic guitar and the sound of whistling. It’s a redemptive kind of moment as Angie sings, “But if you call, I’ll turn on the light for you, If you call I’m going to be bright for you, If you call.” The dynamics of the tune ebb and flow through to an acoustic coda recorded in the open-air suggesting there may be better days ahead. Yet, even if there aren’t somehow we will make it through.
Salt isn’t always the easiest listen. It doesn’t sit in the background music, Angie McMahon demands and commands your attention. She wrestles with her demons in public, providing insight we can’t afford to ignore.
Salt is out now. Order via Amazon
Photo Credit: Paige Clark