Laura Cantrell’s first album of completely original songs in nine years begins with the honest and light-hearted “All The Girls Are Complicated.” It’s a catchy, glossy, but organic slice of country that Cantrell has said is about how, “everyone is complex, no matter how they seem on the surface” – an apt start for an album that shares that concept as a whole.
No Way There From Here does not sound complicated, or challenging. But it is. Sonically, it is simple, no-frills country music, neither Nashville slick nor Bakersfield honky-tonk, eschewing twangy solos or monster hooks for the greater good of each song. In fact, that it does not sound complicated or challenging at first is a testament to Cantrell’s powers as a songwriter. Each song sounds effortless and without gimmick.
Every song is lovingly arranged and without holes, and upon consequent listens, the weight of Cantrell’s brutally simple lyrics seeps in. The exhaustion of someone who needs a win on “The Letter She Sent”: “the day is too harsh/the night is too long/the band on the stage never played her song.” Hopeful yearning on “Driving Down Your Street”: “there’s a chain around your neck/my heart’s caught up on that chain/I wish that we were talking face to face.” Or the sound of someone working to pick up the pieces of themselves on “Washday Blues”: “I’m still trying just to get these old clothes clean.”
Each of these lines are heavier than they might read at first, and even heavier than they might have ever hoped to be when delivered through Cantrell’s delicate alto. No Way There From Here works so well precisely because it never lets you see it sweat, even though it’s working overtime under the surface. (Thrift Shop Recordings, lauracantrell.com) Matt Williams