Frequently, modern indie folk bands receive praise for taking listeners back to a lost era. Some of the most popular bands in the genre have become so merely by approximating the aesthetics of vintage recordings — cheap digital facsimiles of tape hiss and warm acoustics fronted by affected vocal twang. Tamara Lindeman’s band The Weather Station defies the trend of these hollow imitators. Her newest album Loyalty strips away all pretenses, delivering straightforward, elegant, and stunningly realized songs. In that way, she’s created a record that’s beautiful in its timelessness.
Similar to Patty Griffin, the latter day country hero who emerged in her thirties to become one of folk’s most lauded voices, Lindeman creates lyrically impressive songs and vivid scenes. No element–production, style, or even instrumentation–distracts from the overarching artistry of the song or the fundamental purpose of storytelling. Lindeman started younger than Griffin, and three albums into her career she’s beginning to get the recognition her songs deserve. She plays the Parish tonight with The Great Lake Swimmers. Get tickets here. Stream “Shy Women” from Loyalty below.
