So often in our modern age of shifting musical cannon boundaries and genre nonconformity, we hear the resounding plea for a return to simpler times and simpler songs made by purist fans and old soul hipsters wistfully clinging to a bygone era. With her newest album, The Loneliness in Me, Rachel Brooke channels a returning cosmic grievous honky tonk angel, her unembellished and commanding vocals inexplicably containing the specific sound of a haunted echo as it bounces off the baseboards of the oldest dance halls of the country music circuit.

Brooke may hail from Michigan, but spin this album with your eyes closed and your mind’s eye will instantly be inundated with scenes of thick smoke and neon lights dancing off a sea of cowboy hats and big hair as they spin together in star-crossed circles around creaky dance floors. Rather than merely paying homage to the past, Brooke has the ability to have us believe the era isn’t gone at all, merely tucked away inside a world she creates for us through her melodic conjuring. Lyrically witty and expressive, she relies on a pedal steel and high harmony to give weight and wisdom to modern phrasing, resulting in defiantly pure songs that aren’t attempting to be anything at all, except honest country and blues.  

While Brooke has been rightfully compared numerous times to Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash, I’d peg her more as the missing member of the supergroup containing Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline, which might have brought in Ernest Tubb for back up and lead guitar occasionally. A bluesy, melodic wail permeates most of the tracks on the album, with each new track giving a discreet nod to individual and sometimes multiple classic artists. As a result, those of us steeped in country music history will find each track summoning haunted echoes of songs from long ago.

The witty, sometimes comical lyrics remind us one moment of Johnny Cash, while the high melodic crooning of “I Miss It Like It’s Gone” reaches far back across the decades to shake the dust off Eddy Arnold’s “Cattle Call.” While Brooke pays homage to iconic predecessors like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn through sound and style, the album is anything but stale, nor is it overly traditional. Somehow, the mists of forested Michigan, from whence Brooke hails, drift in and settle over the mystical combination of classic country, bluegrass, and the blues; giving the entire project a hue defiant in its simplicity, edgy in it’s restraint. 

For those with pandemic blues and a wistful longing for live performances and neon lights, this mournfully beautiful album comes at just the right time. Rachel Brooke’s, The Loneliness in Me, is slated to be released October 23rd, 2020 by MAL Records.

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