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Po' Girl
Home to You
(Nettwerk)
First Appeared in The Music Box, February 2007, Volume 14, #2
Written by John Metzger
Po’ Girl had no choice but to call its latest album Home to You. Every
song on the set revolves around the notion of returning to a particular point of
origin. On Skies of Grey, for example, a relationship is rekindled
beneath a metaphorical, cleansing rainfall; To the Angry Evangelist calls
for the re-entrenchment of religion as a spiritual rather than political force;
and Drive All Night conveys the yearning for friends and family that
inevitably follows a lengthy stay on the road.
Mirroring the range of emotions that lurk within Po’ Girl’s lyrics, the music
on Home to You exudes an equally tangled array of moods and feelings.
Within the hushed ambience of the title track, an air of melancholy loneliness
blends with a focused yet weary sense of determination, and the mournful ache of
Angels of Grace is framed by the dark, salvation-seeking mystique of its
gospel-blues motif. On the other hand, a more jubilant pose is struck during
Go On and Pass Me By as a lively, Dixieland-style arrangement converges with
a lightly skipping banjo in order to color a jovial, old-time groove.
Although the entirety of Home to You is delivered in an impeccably
graceful fashion, its highlight unquestionably is Til It’s Gone. The
song’s quiet beauty delicately expresses the temporary peace and comfort that
can be found within a lover’s embrace, and as it progresses, it increasingly
bears hints of Bob Dylan’s work, though his trademark harmonica is replaced with
the gentle caress of a clarinet. Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You,
in particular, is never far from reach.
Since its debut, Po’ Girl has cast a wide net, fashioning its own distinctive
sound from an array of influences that stretch from jazz to folk, gospel to
soul, and blues to rock. In that sense, Home to You merely refines the
textures that long have resided in its work. The big difference, then, is that
the band’s poetic ruminations have continued to mature and evolve, and in
concocting a narrative arc that binds together the collection’s components, Po’
Girl has crafted its most sophisticated and resonant outing to date. 
Home to You is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box
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