Consummate folk-influenced, debut album from Pacific Northwest-based singer-songwriter.
Megan Brickwood grew up in the small, former mining town of Redding in rural, northern California. Now residing in the Pacific Northwest, ‘All The Same’, is Brickwood’s debut full-length release, and was recorded in the secluded Bear Creek Studio just outside Seattle. She takes her inspiration from North American artists she grew up listening to on her parents’ stereo such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, as well as Nick Drake. Like Joni Mitchell, Brickwood has an evocative, crystal-clear voice.
Opener ‘All The Same’ finds Brickwood using an open D tuning on her guitar and a Nick Drake-influenced fingerpicking style. It’s a song about moving on, knowing that in the end it’s ‘all the same’. ‘Hey Little Darling’ contains advice to Brickwood’s younger self, encouraging her to get on with life. It’s one of the more mainstream and slightly rockier songs on the record. ‘Trinity River Blues’ is an ode to the watercourse and eponymously named county in the north-west of California where a ‘pale moon hangs in a lavender sky’.
Brickwood says that ‘Nothing New’ is her “most political song”, however, it’s not overtly so. It’s more a personal reflection with Brickwood pondering ‘Is there more? Is this a world worth fighting for?’ An encounter with a woman at a market stall suggests to her that change is always possible. ‘Fifth Mile’ has an experimental feel to it and is another Nick Drake-inspired track with a tumbling piano riff underlaying Brickwood’s acoustic fingerpicking. ‘Broken In The Middle’ is Brickwood’s tribute to Joan Baez, harkening back to an old lover.
‘You’ll Never Find A Girl Like Me’ is the most Aimee Mann-sounding song on the album, both from the points of view of the music and lyrics with Brickwood singing ‘Oh my god, I was such a fool for you, But I know it’s a lie, That empty pie in the sky that you made for me, I’m much better off with a heart of my own’. In ‘The Line’ Brickwood mixes geography with the emotions where crossing the line refers to the county boundary and also somebody traversing a personal limit from which there’s no coming back. ‘Over The Bridge’ is described as “the only real love song on the album”. It starts with an ominous guitar riff and the whole feel of the song seems to be recalling a doomed venture, with Brickwood commencing with ‘On my way over the bridge I heard you say that we would pay for this’.
In the past, Brickwood has said that “I’m an introvert so that most challenging part is the networking and self-promotion aspect [of music]”. Hopefully she’ll rise to the task of making sure the world hears this very accomplished debut.
