An accessible and literate roots-rock gem.
Renowned for her energetic and charismatic live persona (and also for being an award -winning English professor; yes, really), Florence Dore returns with the follow-up to 2022’s Highways and Rocketships.
The single Sunset Road is an energetic start to proceedings, and it’s got the gritty twang that one associates with producer Don Dixon and has a guitar-focused, bluesy edge too. The Worst Mistake I never made is more reflective in tone and pace, but still has the Mitch Easter/Don Dixon/Let’s Active feel, and features fine guitar work from John Prine’s guitarist, Jason Wilber.
Title track Hold the Spark is, in subject matter, a not-too-distant lyrical cousin of Richard Hawley’s What Love Means, both are inspired by a daughter going off to college, but Dore frames her mixed reaction of sadness and excitement with a maternal perspective and a 60s west coast production and soundscape. Horns and a tremulous violin give it that vintage musical mis-en-scene.
Twelve Great Minds (Department Meeting) is probably the first song that’s been written about the waste of time in the workplace that has befallen many of us; the meeting that could have been an email. It’s musically nihilistic with Dore ranting and vamping over a single chord riff and swearing cathartically at regular intervals. It’s well worthy of a parental advisory label, that’s for sure and confirms the unwritten rule that creative and intelligent people are often the most potty-mouthed.
Abacus contrarily takes on the mysteries of love in a riffy 60s garage-pop manner, with Mark Spencer on guitar dominating in that area, before a slide down into a more reflective zone with the largely acoustic The One You Need. Guitar interplay from Peter Holsapple and Chris Masterson adds icing to the melancholy realisation that sometimes you’re not needed by others.
Superstar is a character sketch of the obsessive fame chaser who neglects his family for an ideal husband. Will Rigby’s drums fly around with Keith Moon-type fills around Dore’s choppy and slashing rhythm and Jeremy Chatzky’s descending bass lines. Can’t Come Down is another third-person take, again looking at the kind of damaged characters that Willie Vlautin populates his writing with, but seen through more of a Lucinda Williams sonic glass.
Butterflies is another track that harks back to late 60’s/early 70s influences. The aforementioned Mitch Easter plays sitar, and there’s reversed guitar trickery adding to the psychedelic musical soup, along with ghostly backing vocals from Eleanor Whitmore. It’s a little obtuse lyrically with references to some sort of search for meaning and direction, like the elusive butterfly (sic).
The title of the mid-paced and catchy Just like Mookie Betts is based on a somewhat obscure baseball incident (at least to non-baseball fans), but its message of getting by with love in lieu of being wealthy resonates beyond that. Penultimate track On Empty is a song about burnout, taken from a female perspective, and features a fluid and soulful lead vocal from Dore, interspersed with purring lead runs from Chris Masterson, before the album winds down with the gentle and ruminating Shakespeare-quoting Nothing With You. It’s an acceptance of the inevitable and the best way to get there.
On Hold the Spark, Florence Dore has taken, like, perhaps James McMurtry, conventional or traditional forms of rock but elevated them with insight and lyricism that adds layer on layer to produce an accessible gem worthy of further investigation.
