{"id":139,"date":"2009-11-30T14:19:05","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T20:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=139"},"modified":"2009-11-30T14:19:05","modified_gmt":"2009-11-30T20:19:05","slug":"shannon-stephens-the-breadwinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2009\/11\/30\/shannon-stephens-the-breadwinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Shannon Stephens &#8211; The Breadwinner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-140\" title=\"stephens\" src=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/stephens.jpg\" alt=\"stephens\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/>An old friend and former bandmate of Sufjan Stevens (no relation), Shannon Stephens\u2019 new album, The Breadwinner, is full of hymns to domestic life, where small is beautiful and love is learned the hard way. Stephens has been covered by Bonnie \u201cPrince\u201d Billy on his 2008 album Lie Down in the Light, and has been lauded by critics for her \u201cgut-punch\u201d lyricism. After nearly a decade in hiding, The Breadwinner is her attempt to give songwriting and recording another go. On top of the clucking of hens and short orchestral blasts, \u201cHard Times are Coming\u201d is an instructive testimony to her daughter, on which she warns \u201call kingdoms go and flourish, then they decline, all that they\u2019ve won unrighteously becomes their own undoing eventually.\u201d The Breadwinner provides plenty of fertile ground to explore the meaning of love, home family with an apocalyptic eye to the future. Although some of these songs, like \u201cIn the Summer in the Heat,\u201d remain unmemorable, the albums shortcomings are quickly made up for with the spiritually resonant \u201cCome to My Table,\u201d which finds Stephens at her most affective, crooning like Eva Cassidy, pondering work, rest and communion. The Breadwinner can be rather bland at times, but if soft-spoken, spiritually aware singer-songwriters are your thing, this one\u2019s a winner. (Asthmatic Kitty, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asthmatickitty.com\/\">www.asthmatickitty.com<\/a>) <strong>Jonathan Dyck<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An old friend and former bandmate of Sufjan Stevens (no relation), Shannon Stephens\u2019 new album, The Breadwinner, is full of hymns to domestic life, where small is beautiful and love is learned the hard way. Stephens has been covered by Bonnie \u201cPrince\u201d Billy on his 2008 album Lie Down in the Light, and has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}