Ditching their surnames for Imaginary People, their second album, Appalachian duo Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno enlisted Alex Bingham of Hiss Golden Messenger as producer (and bassist) for a collection of jangly folksy pop about honouring the past and using it as a platform to move forward and grow. Featuring Whit Wright from American Aquarium on pedal steel and HGM’s Sam Fribush returning on keys, her airy vocals reminiscent of Zooey Deschanel, the album opens with Kygers Hill, a homage to Leva’s Southwestern Virginia hometown written after a visit for a recharge that prompted both a renewed appreciation of her childhood (“Try to listen closely to the things that I once mostly/Took for granted, disenchanted”) but also that such things were now just memories (“bedroom’s looking smaller or am I just getting older”).
The geography shifts to Sauvie Island for a lightly picked paean to an island retreat where they took refuge (“Early morning blue-painted chairs/Smell of smoke still in our hair/Fires burning everywhere”) from the city bustle during their time living in Portland.
Anchored by a circling guitar figure, The General has a different spin on the usual love song that initially seems to be about domestic abuse (“Why’d ya even have to come downstairs/The way you look at me it makes me scared/Acting all tough with your bleached-out hair/Just say the word and I’ll be prepared”) but then throws in “I just wanna be the air you breathe/Lead me where the grass is green/You’re my shepherd and I’m your sheep”, even if the line “you’re my general and I’m your cadet” has a troubling hint of submissiveness.
Himself blessed with engaging vocals, Calcagno takes his first lead on the watery fingerpicked Is It All Over, a whimsical vision of the future (“when they run out of names for hurricanes/Will they start over /And will the Arctic have a baseball park/And a field of clover”) that ponders on interplanetary gigging in Martian mining towns that seems unlikely to be much different to that down here (“Will bands fly up and play for the rovers/Will it be a door-deal or a guarantee/Or tips and exposure”). Trivia fans will probably want to know that the line about Warby Parker is an obscure reference to a New York-based optician.
Leva picks up the baton again for the jaunty fiddle, organ and pedal steel-coloured title track, which she describes as grappling with all the different versions of yourself, “Who I was and who I am and who I wanna be”, albeit the line, “These days all I can put on are personalities/I’m so good at being cruel I don’t need enemies/I light a little candle in the hopes of thinking clear/But then I turn the TV on to stop ’em getting near”, suggests a deeper complexity.
Flashing Lights, with its mellotron and Solina strings, is a strummed slow waltz capturing the feeling of being mentally, physically and emotionally free after lockdown (“after all this time I’m ready to have a good time/Maybe I’ll even make a friend”), as well as a slight mushroom high (“You take a cap and a stem at that/And feel your worries slide right out the door”), There’s mention of more drugs, weed and pills this time as Calcagno returns to take lead on How To Lose, a childhood memory of a friend whose father died (“You cried into a phone to a sleeping boy alone/Your brother’s in the next room screaming at the screen/His mother downstairs is struggling to breathe/Still can’t believe such a cruel cruel thing”) and feeling guilt at not knowing how to be there for them (“You’re crying in the last seat of the minivan/I-5 traffic try to drown it out with the fan/All I could do was to hold your hand/I’m so sorry that I fell asleep /The only damn minute that you really needed me/I was paralyzed by how to be”).
He also plays fiddle on his self-penned lively instrumental Chance Creek that pulls together old time string-band and Irish influences, the last of the original material being the gently slow waltzing The Long Way, Leva reflecting on the need to learn to slow down in the ebb and flow of becoming who you are (“Growing up then falling back/Learning right ways to react/Looking ahead ’til you realize/You’re moving too fast”) and not succumbing to self-destructive thoughts (“Some days I dream about a home/Being with the one I love/But then I play pretend/And put it up in smoke”).
The hint of darkness there leads into the final track, their yearning duet take on the Ozark traditional The Blackest Crow (aka My Dearest Dear), with Calcagno on plucked banjo (the instrumentation apparently including ice cubes), but believed to be a parting song from the American Civil War, suffused with the positivity of staying faithful while apart (“The blackest crow my dearest dear/Will surely turn to white/If ever I prove false to you”).
A more musically complex and emotionally profound work than their acclaimed debut, which was a Folk Radio UK album of the year in 2021, there’s no reason to think this won’t be a repeat performance.
Viv & Riley’s Imaginary People is out on Sept. 15 on Free Dirt Records.