Erin McKeown

Hundreds of Lions

(Righteous Babe)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

A brief line of semi-backstory: Erin McKeown was one of the first musicians I reviewed.  Her album Distillation was a special piece of work, a perfect convergence of her influences (everything from Tin Pan Alley to Ani DiFranco).  A fair number of tracks from that album – mostly particularly “La Petite Mort” and “Queen of Quiet” – have withstood the test of time.  In the years since, McKeown has plugged along at a steady clip, but always, at least from this vantage point, seeming to be either chasing or unnecessarily distancing herself from Distillation.  The last we heard from her was the Great American Songbook salute Sing You Sinners.  Her talent wasn’t going anywhere, but she did seem to be flirting with the risk of becoming a bit homogenized. 

A few fortuitous incidents led to Hundreds of Lions.  Perhaps most importantly, McKeown reconnected with DiFranco, who – like me – had taken notice of the young songwriter back in the Distillation era.  They’d previously played shows together, but this time McKeown wound up on DiFranco’s iconic indie label, Righteous Babe.  The return to her indie roots seems to have inspired some return to her musical roots as well; Hundreds of Lions is a polished and patiently crafted album, but also has some homespun charm.  Instead of fixating on a certain time period or style, she’s again pulling her influences into the present (Sing You Sinners obviously didn’t do that by design, but even some of her lesser original material seemed more like reenactment or homage than new territory).  It’s safe to say that Hundreds of Lions is her best work since Distillation – and, like that album, the standouts here (“The Rascal,” “The Lions,” “To a Hammer”) seem poised to stick around on playlists for a long time.