Shawna Caspi – Hurricane Coming
Independent – 27 August 2021
Fans of openhearted singer-songwriter fare, and artists like Kathleen Edwards, Kelley McRae, Shawn Colvin or Mary Chapin Carpenter, take careful note of the words that follow because you’re going to love Shawna Caspi’s new album, Hurricane Coming.
In line with the prototypical lyrical content of any and all of the above, the Toronto artist’s fifth full-length collection is a sincere offering, bursting with sentiments and heart-on-sleeve emotions that will resonate with many: insecurities, anxiety and self-esteem; hopes and dreams; relationships and love’s peaks and valleys; life’s mistakes and regrets; finding our place in the world, and learning to appreciate life’s victories, all find their way into Hurricane Coming.
In respect of that last aspect – life’s little hurrahs – from both Caspi’s perspective as a performer and that of anyone – like me – whose health history dictates the need for regular monitoring, the penultimate track, Celebrate, boasts a wonderful couplet:
The song that tames a crowd at the start of a show / The scan coming back all clear five years in a row
Not to mention Caspi’s slick guitar playing, her oft-poetic, thoughtful lyrics like these flow consistently throughout the ten crisply performed songs that compactly comprise Hurricane Coming. Embedded in gorgeous balladic and mid-tempo roots-pop melodies, they’re delivered in her pure, emotive voice for an emotionally and sonically rewarding listen. Additionally, it’s familiar scenarios such as that presented in Celebrate and the gently chugging Ghost Town that make Hurricane Coming so relatable. The latter features a classic stranger-in-a-strange-town lyric and is a forthright examination of how self-conscious, impatient and, from the ain’t-it-quaint angle, how patronizing we can be – however unwittingly – when finding ourselves somewhere less sophisticated or slower-paced than we might be used to:
A big city bully when I’m stuck in line / With the postal clerk who types too slow / And I make a sign like I gotta go
I love the Main Street throwback / The corner bar that just takes cash / The cowboy in the produce aisle
Lovely observations, I feel. I’ve been there, and no doubt you have, too!
Caspi took an entirely different approach to crafting the songs for Hurricane Coming than for previous albums. Following her last exhausting tour in support of 2017’s Forest Fire, she took time out to decompress, slow right down, and work on, she says, “the dark parts of myself…burnout, anxiety, and struggle with self-worth.” The result of that process was this fine new album, her most personal set of songs to date. In tandem with the songs, Caspi – already an accomplished landscape painter (based on photographs taken on tour) – took another fresh approach by launching into a set of affecting abstracts inspired by each song on Hurricane Coming, one of the series featuring as the album’s Amy Campbell-designed sleeve. In an innovative consumption model, each painting can be purchased (from Caspi’s website and Bandcamp page) as a postcard that comes with a download code, with the entire set also available.
Beautifully produced by Joel Schwartz (Birds of Chicago / Great Lake Swimmers / Amelia Curran), who contributes guitars, banjo, and mandolin, and co-wrote the opener Wait Love, Echo, and closer, Hold the Light – the 33-minute Hurricane Coming features a genuinely stellar band. Bassist Devon Henderson has played with Justin Rutledge, Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning, and boogie-woogie pianist Michael Kaeshammer; drummer Mark Mariash has worked with Mary Margaret O’Hara, Ron Sexsmith, and The Wailin’ Jennies, while keyboardist Scott Galloway tinkles the ivories for Canadian country heavyweight, Dean Brody. Backing vocals are courtesy of (the highly recommended solo artist) Sarah Hiltz and Peter Stone from Edmonton folkies 100 Mile House, while (with the exception of a few elements) the whole shebang was recorded by the Juno and Grammy-nominated engineers Jeremy Darby and Julian Decorte at The Canterbury Music Company in Toronto. A hefty cast indeed.
As it appears Caspi faced a storm of emotions head-on in order to find the headspace to create her cathartic fifth and best album to date, Hurricane Coming is certainly an apt title for it. Yet despite housing some big emotions, the result is, I’m delighted to report, a largely calm, soothing, and melodically sunny affair, with Caspi’s hurricane hopefully now passed…
Hurricane Coming is released on 27 August 2021. Pre-order via:
https://shawnacaspi.com/hurricane-coming/ | https://shawnacaspi.bandcamp.com/
Photo Credit: Roni Hoffman