Jess Jocoy “Cul-de-Sac Kid”

Stellar songwriting and her distinctive voice draw you in for a third excellent album in a row.

You might need a while, and a couple of listens to really ‘get’ Jess Jocoy and her new album “Cul-de-Sac Kid”. But when you do, you will appreciate that she is one of the best of an outstanding crop of female singer-songwriters that are leading the charge in americana music. Your initial thought, when the instrumentation on the first track of her new album kicks off, is that this is standard country fare – it is not. Jocoy’s introspective and cinematic songwriting sees to that, as does her scintillatingly compelling voice. We’ll get back to that.

Jocoy was born and brought up in a suburb of Seattle and started writing songs and singing from an early age. In her late teens, she went to Belmont University in Nashville to study songwriting. She has resided in Nashville ever since but has often found herself with feelings of self-doubt and displacement which she addresses in her third album “Cul-de-Sac Kid“: how she has felt like an outsider trying to mix her country leanings (inherited from her late father’s musical tastes) with her more authentic urban roots tendencies derived from the cul de sacs of suburban Seattle; how she has navigated the grief of her father’s passing at a young age around the time she moved to Nashville; how being alone in a music city and not feeling a part of the music scene there has led to feelings of not-fitting-in; and how she has distilled her experiences into some lovely vignettes about her life and that of strangers she has met.

Her debut album “Such a Long Way” (2020) was difficult to market due to the timing of its release during COVID, despite critical acclaim. The sophomore release “Let There Be No Despair” (2022) was also highly rated (AUK scored it 8/10, noting her “well-crafted lyrics dealing with the darker times we all experience and the special qualities of her voice, evident from the off too, rich and full-bodied, but always natural and unforced”. A short EP, “Brighter Eyes” in 2022, was well received, described as “mesmerising and stately“. And then she won AUK’s Twang Factor 2 in the same year.

In a very competitive field, it is not always easy to get music released, but a burgeoning fan base responded to a Kickstarter campaign, which raised the funds required to record the recently released new album. The album revolves around the title track, a slightly bluesy exploration of her musical place in a country town “And my hallelujah get’s a little hollowed out / Just does that to ya when life’s been giving you the runaround / My roots and my boots don’t go too far in to this southern ground so I’m wondering / Does country really need a country song from a cul-de-sac kid” And, as with a few of the tracks, the lingering ‘presence’ of her father presides over the mood “Oh, but heaven went and gave an angel his halo all too soon”.

But back to the opener, ‘I Could Live on that Alone‘; the lyrics belie the commercial country vibe, as Jocoy digs deep into honesty in the way of Ashley McBryde or Margo Price, and imagines a kind of love to which she aspires, while suffering from the loneliness of a struggling artist living alone and still grieving for her father. The album is full of great storytelling, none better than the 5½ minute second track ‘Above Ground‘- a character study about mortality, which is a gem. As is ‘A Life Only Lasts So Long’, where the ‘ghost’ of her father lingers in the background as Jocoy contemplates her fear of a lifetime commitment when that lifetime can be very fleeting.

There is one cover song on the album, a moody and introverted version of boot-scootin’ cowboys Brooks and Dunn’s ‘Neon Moon’, converting it into a mournful reflection on loneliness “Oh, if you lose your one and only / There’s always room here for the lonely / To watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams of a neon moon”. With her voice full of longing, a lovely, slow bass line, and echoey guitar break, this transposes a country boogie into a soulful ballad.

There’s a Patsy Cline pastiche in the form of the lovely waltz ‘Every Good Cowboy‘ that needs a good woman on top of all the cowboy accoutrements, and ‘Tearing Up Heaven’ looks at the decimation of a small town due to overbuilding. And in an album of great songs, there is the sarcastic kiss-off song ‘You Sure Showed Me ‘–“If you didn’t love me anymore, you could’ve just said it / You weren’t the only lonely heart, so part of me gets it”.

For a band of not-at-all familiar session players, they certainly coalesce empathetically and in a nicely laid back way around Jocoy’s voice, an instrument in itself that swoops and soars or whispers longingly; Lance Martin is the star on all types of guitar and banjo, John Cavendish on bass and John Rodrigue on drums make a solid rhythm section and Steve Bowman delivers some fine strings, all pulled together by producer Brandon Bell as producer (Jocoy herself gets co-producer credit).

This album is a fine addition to the Jocoy oeuvre, and if there was any justice, she should be on her way to star billing. As mentioned at the beginning, it might take a listen or two to be drawn by Jocoy’s voice into these exquisite songs, but you may well end up believing that this is one of the better albums of the year.