Tiny Vipers

Life on Earth

(Sub Pop)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

Slow melancholy falls out of the speakers, touching my skin like “The Needle and the Damage Done”. This is different though, this is painted with a little more heartache. Jesy Fortino, the voice and vision that is Seattle’s Tiny Vipers, sings like a rainfall.

While you can make comparisons to, file on the same shelf as, bands like Cat Power and Low, Tiny Vipers skates around her own icy circle of lake, perhaps more in tune with some of Vic Chesnutt’s more mournful songs than Chan Marshall’s uncomfortable whisperings.

I am sometimes reminded of a sparser and minimal Rosie Thomas as well, stretched out like the longest winter day. There may be a few descriptive words that fall into play here that make you think that these songs are cold, but that’s not the case. While surrounded by snow, there is definite warmth to the songs. Sadness, a few teardrops, but it feels like while Jesy may be looking out at some great arctic expanse, the fireplace is burning, and the heat moves through the poetic lyrics, melting at your touch.

The songs move, countrywide, like a lost highway at 3 am, and it doesn’t matter if you are travelling through some dusty plains or a mountain’s pass, the light that resonates from the strum and vibration of the notes keeps the shadows swirling like an oil slick at the side of the road. It’s a journey worth taking, a blue highway, a past that’s sad enough to make the future look more hopeful.