Kathleen Edwards – Back To Me

 

Kathleen Edwards – Back To Me

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

Your mid-20s are a time of identity crisis. As Ethan Hawke says to Winona Ryder in the film Reality Bites, “the only thing you have to be by the age of 23 is yourself.” But what if you don’t know who that person is or what they should be? Few artists articulate this feeling better than Kathleen Edwards.

Born in Ottawa, Ontario but raised overseas – her father was a diplomat – she began recording in 1999 with an extremely limited EP entitled Building 55. Fast forward to 2005, and Edwards released her second full-length album Back To Me coming two years after her official debut Failer.

From the first notes, Back To Me is leaps and bounds ahead of her previous work, both in terms of maturity and execution. 

While Edwards is the main voice – and the primary author of the material here – her collaborator Colin Cripps is her secret weapon. Playing lead and/or slide guitar on every track – except the solo acoustic “Away” – as well as producing, they were a musical match in heaven. Cripps’ atmospheric, creative playing perfectly compliments Edwards’ honey and grit vocals.

In “Summerlong,” Edwards – and Cripps who co-wrote it – spin a tale comparing a temporary fling to a childhood game of hide-and-seek over chiming Rickenbacker guitars. Benmont Tench of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers even shows up on the track to add gorgeous piano touches.

And in “Copied Keys” Edwards has written possibly the saddest song about feeling alone with the one you love since “Unsatisfied” by The Replacements.

Over a crying slide guitar and violin, the narrator describes her life in the starkest terms possible – her friends, her streets, and her identity no longer belong to her.  She has been treated like a piece of furniture in her partner’s apartment. When the song reaches its climax towards the end, it is a total highlight of the album – and 2000s Americana in general.

But perhaps no song is greater than opener “In State.” Over a monster riff that will be stuck in your head for days, Edwards compares a cheating lover to an outlaw – and duly threatens to turn him into the authorities. It’s the kind of song on which entire musical careers are made.

In a just world “In State” would have been a major radio hit. In fact, if it was released in 2015 rather than 2005 it very well could’ve been.

Although she predated the alt-country renaissance by a few years, Kathleen Edwards achieved the pinnacle of the genre in Back To Me.

Zoe Records/2005