JAIME WYATT : NEON CROSS

JAIME WYATT : NEON CROSS

Sweet Mess
Neon Cross
LIVIN
Make Something Outta Me
By Your Side
Just A Woman (with Jessi Colter)
Goodbye Queen
Mercy
Rattlesnake Girl
Hurt So Bad (with Shooter Jennings)
Demon Tied To A Chair In My Brain

Label : New West Records

Release Date : May 29, 2020

Length : 43:34

Review (Pitchfork) : The last time we heard from Jaime Wyatt, she was at the start of a bad spiral. Covering Merle Haggard's "Misery and Gin" at the end of her 2017 debut Felony Blues, the Nashville country singer succumbed to her loneliest thoughts, "sitting with all my friends and talking to myself." Now, she's all but abandoned. Her latest album, Neon Cross, begins with the slowest of slow burns: a lush, stately piano ballad called "Sweet Mess." Even more than its hopeless lyrics or gentle rainfall of piano and pedal steel, you're left hanging onto her voice-a smoky, one-of-a-kind instrument. Just from a few notes, you might imagine it echoing from the darkest corner of a bar, from someone with a troubled past and a long, sad story to tell. And you would be right. Raised in rural Washington, Jaime Wyatt headed to California as a teenager with the hopes of breaking into the music industry. Instead, she found herself in personal and professional hell. She turned to hard drugs and, at 21, was arrested for robbing her heroin dealer. After serving eight months in jail and getting clean, her marriage fell apart; she relapsed after the death of her father and several of her closest friends. Some of these experiences, soundtracked by boozy, swaggering outlaw country, made their way onto Felony Blues, a tight, seven-song introduction that confirmed her as one of the genre's most exciting and skillful storytellers. But "Sweet Mess" is her first song that suggests a darkness from which she can't escape. It is beautiful, enveloping, and totally bleak. It is also an outlier. For the most part, Neon Cross is another triumphant record that speaks to the ways in which Wyatt has overcome these situations. She wrote most of its songs after recovering from addiction and coming out as gay: "I lost years of my life being in the closet and living a lie and trying to be someone else," she explained. "I just can't do it anymore." The title track immediately feels like her defining song. Over a galloping rhythm and jangling acoustic guitars, she allows for winking, momentary self-pity: "So sad, goddamn/I'm wearing some pitiful perfume." But the way she sings it, it seems more like a rallying cry, an effort to turn the car around and make the most of the night. A refrain of "Oh, poor me!" has never seemed so hopeful. The rest of the songs follow suit, searching for silver linings, or at the very least, a good punchline. She recorded the album with fellow outlaw revivalist Shooter Jennings, who expands on the old-school blueprint of Felony Blues to match these songs' wide-ranging emotions. You can sense the pair digging through their record collections to find just the right texture. A brief twinkle of keyboard at the end of "Just a Woman"-a duet with Jennings' mother, country legend Jessi Colter-sounds straight out of an '80s jukebox classic, while the ghostly fiddle and pedal steel in her rendition of Dax Riggs' "Demon Tied to a Chair in My Brain" make it sound more like an unearthed Carter Family standard. There is a cumulative feeling to the music, like Wyatt is placing herself within a deep history of folk wisdom. While Neon Cross highlights the versatility of Wyatt's gorgeous, commanding voice, she finds her comfort zone in singalong anthems like "Goodbye Queen." It's got a sunny, windows-down charm that feels perfectly suited to the timeless grain of her singing. She mines similar territory in "Make Something Outta Me," a callback to her last record's more overtly autobiographical material. This time around, she embellishes her past with self-effacing humor as she zooms through her last 15 years, cracking jokes about her regrets, her online dating profile, and her fatalist tendencies. "I was raised on heartache," she sings, "So I like to suffer slow." It's a clever lyric that should ring true for anyone who, like her, gravitates toward sad songs with dark, inevitable endings. But Wyatt wants you to know that's not how she sees herself. On Neon Cross, her story is just beginning.

Review (Blues Town Music) : De muzikale talenten van de op 29 september 1985 in Santa Monica, California, geboren zangeres Jaime Wyatt, worden op 12-jarige leeftijd ontdekt in het kroegencircuit. Op jeugdige leeftijd beleeft zij ook een donkere periode als gevolg van een hardnekkige heroïneverslaving. Ze belandt, o.a. vanwege mishandeling van haar dealer, enige tijd in de gevangenis. Als ze afgekickt is maakt ze in 2017 het minialbum 'Felony Blues', een countryalbum waarmee ze met haar verleden af wil rekenen. Vorige maand verscheen 'Neon Cross', het nieuwe album van Jaime Wyatt. 'Neon Cross' is opgenomen in Station House Studios in Los Angeles, California en geproduceerd door Shooter Jennings, de zoon van de legendarische country outlaw Waylon Jennings. Wyatt wordt op dit album begeleid door een aantal voortreffelijke musici, waaronder de in augustus vorig jaar overleden gitarist singer-songwriter Neal Casal, bassist Ted Russel Kamp en John Schreffer jr. op pedal steel. Het album opent met de indringend gezongen pianoballad, waarna het tempo omhoog gaat in het titelnummer, de vrolijke melodieuze countryrocker Neon Cross. LIVIN, met een fraaie pedalsteel, heeft een hoog Tammy Wynette en Dolly Parton gehalte. Uptempo countryrock, met een strakke ritmesectie, is er dan weer in Make Something Outta Me. Na de prachtige slepende soulballad By Your Side, is in de retro countryballad Just a Woman een mooi duet met Jessie Colter, de weduwe van Waylon en de moeder van Shooter Jennings te horen. Wyatt bewijst ook weer een uitstekende zangeres te zijn in het melodieuze Goodbye Queen en de meeslepende ballad Mercy. Daarna rockt het weer lekker weg in Rattlesnake Girl. Hurt So Bad is een tearjerker in de beste traditie van Tammy Wynette, met Shooter Jennings in de backing vocals en een excellerende John Schreffer jr. op pedalsteel. Het slotnummer Demon Tied To a Chair In My Brain is een met fiddle en pedal steel gelardeerde hartstochtelijk gezongen klassieke countryballad. Conclusie: 'Neon Cross' is een prima album.

Review (Highway Queens) : Jaime Wyatt has been working for a breakthrough for a long time, finding her career waylaid by addiction and even jail. Her last release Felony Blues explored that painful past, with a nod to Merle Haggard and the outlaws who came before her. The question she explores on this new album Neon Cross is: who do you become when you've hit rock bottom, recovered and it still wasn't the end of your pain? How do you get on with LIVIN in this damn world? The album is produced by Shooter Jennings, who has been doing some outstanding work for a long time, most notably with Brandi Carlile and Tanya Tucker. Those artists are touchstones in terms of the raw and real Americana sound of this album but Jaime has something truly special which sets her apart - a voice and lyrical insight that only comes with struggle and suffering. On opening song Sweet Mess she sings a ballad about love and pain, repeating 'leave me lonely' over and over again, as the pedal steel guitar gently weeps. The ache in her voice answering any questions doubters may have about her authenticity or country music credentials. There's a wry, self-deprecating humour in her writing too. She knows herself, flaws and all. On the blistering title track she sings ruefully 'Oh poor me' and admits to 'wearing some pitiful perfume'. Sadness, pain, misery - she's felt it and had enough of it. You don't love me, why don't you nail me to a neon cross. She's sacrificed parts of her self, her spirit, her sobriety, her soul for this life and she's not going to give up now. On the brilliant LIVIN she admits to having been through 'hell' and now she's looking for a better way. Love is the answer of course, although the religious imagery on this album suggests it's also salvation that's she's after, even if she doesn't much care for what the 'holy rollers' have to offer. Make Something Outta Me ruminates on the hard slog of her career, her life and seeks an answer from god about her higher purpose. When you've been working all your life and you're still relatively unknown it has to be tough, especially when you've got the talent and the songs to match anyone. Over the whole album the songwriting quality never dips. Goodbye Queen, Hurt So Bad and Rattlesnake Girl are all catchy as hell, and encapsulate that raw and edgy side of her musical persona. Her musical spirit might be naturally rock and roll but on By Your Side and Just a Woman she sings the hell out of a ballad too. Having Jessi Colter back her up on the latter adds to its classic country sound and reminds us of all the women who've walked through storms before her. The best vocal performance on the album is the gut wrenching 'Mercy', a plea and a prayer for some compassion, forgiveness, strength to keep on going. She closes the album by acknowledging the darkness within on a cover of Dax Riggs's Demon Tied to A Chair in My Brain. She sings from the depth of her soul, like a exorcism of the spirit. Neon Cross is a revelatory collection of songs full of honesty, heart and grit. It seems so unfair then this album has to be released at such a strange and unsettled time. Let's hope we can hear these songs being played live and loud under a flickering neon sign in the not so distant future.

Review (Highway Queens) : De zangeres die als teenager vanuit een rustig, landelijke bestaan op een van de eilanden van Washington State, terug in het zonnige California belandt proeft vrij jong van het succes. Haar songs verzeilen op enkele soudtracks maar Jaime Wyatt heeft vrijwel meteen een date met de schaduwkanten van het muzikantenbestaan. Een hardnekkige heroïneverslaving leidt naar een donkere periode, met het bestelen van haar eigen dealer als droevig hoogtepunt. De gevangenispoort klapt voor enkele maanden dicht en na het afkicken vult Wyatt in 2017 de langspeler Felony Blues opgebouwd met uit haar leven gegrepen verhalen in een authentieke country en honky tonk context verwerkt. Op Neon Cross wordt met de hulp van Shooter Jennings de sound verder geperfectioneerd en verruimd. De zoon van Waylon zorgt naast aanvullend toetsenwerk voor de productie en engageert een bescheiden maar voortreffelijk muzikantenclubje. Naast Ted Russel Kamp op bas en de pedalsteel van John Schreffer Jr. horen we het sfeervolle gitaar en Wurlitzewerk van Neal Casal, het worden zijn finale sessies voor hij vorig jaar uit het leven stapte. Wyatt neemt geen blad voor de mond en brengt schrijnende verhalen over haar rusteloos bestaan het hervallen in drugsmisbruik, hopeloze liefdes en sombere beschouwingen. Vanaf Sweet Mess, een pijnlijke pianoballade met Jaime achter het klavier tot en met het door fiddle en pedalsteel aangedreven van Demon Tried To Chair In My Brain worden we met traditioneel klinkende country van de meeslepende soort geconfronteerd , zonder in de val van zouteloze Nashville confectie te trappen. De titeltrack is met aan Buddy Holly herinnerende roffels gestofferde honky tonk en LIVIN refereert onbeschaamd naar Tammy Wynette. Rockende intermezzo's wisselen af met smartelijke slepers. In Just A Woman is een grandioze tandemrit met Jessi Colter terwijl Shooter opduikt in Hurt So Bad. De doorleefde snik in het weergaloze stemtimbre van deze 'rattlesnake girl', het klinkt telkens onweerstaanbaar in doodeerlijke persoonlijke ontboezemingen. Jaime Wyatt behoort ongetwijfeld bij de betere zangeressen van de nieuwe lichting en sluit met haar eigenhandig gecomponeerde repertoire moeiteloos aan bij illustere countrytantes.