Jenny Owens Youngs “Avalanche”

Redemptive meditation on time passing and life events from talented singer-songwriter.

This is the first release for Jenny Owens Youngs for ten years as her life took her in different directions including amongst other things producing a podcast about Buffy the Vampire Slayer with over 160,000 flowers, a divorce, a remarriage and a relocation from Los Angeles to Maine – no small distance.

Produced by Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman this has the same hallmarks of careful, pronounced production which highlights the songs and makes sure that every instrument is in their right place and at the right volume within the very polite structure. There are no bum notes and the sound is crystalline.

Titles such as ‘Knife Went In’, ‘Bury Me Slowly’ and ‘ Set It On Fire’ give the listener a flavour of the music to come as these songs are often confessional in nature as Youngs pours her soul onto the tracks chronicling the heart and heft of her life since her previous release. The voice is a delightful, expressive instrument and lyrically she conjures some strong imagery that sits well in the sympathetic instrumentation that often gives way to leave the tremulous voice alone and stripped.

Highlights are the aforementioned ‘Bury Me Slowly’ with its funeral pace and swirling sounds, ‘Salt’ with its Harvest beat and cracked vocals bursting into a beautiful harmonied chorus and the title track with hymnal introduction and acoustic guitar figure leading to Youngs’ ethereal vocal leading the listener by the hand as pop meets country and western.

This is a strong return from Youngs after years of writing for others. It’s good to have her back making her own music.