When reviewing the third EP from Sara Trunzo, Cabin Fever Dream, this listener was immediately struck by what seemed like the magical, vocal embrace of a mature Edie Brickell. Make no mistake, however, Trunzo’s Americana musical sound and songwriting style are all her own. 

Sara has a comparatively uncommon background for Americana: working-class Catholic school in New Jersey, followed by college, and eventually landing in rural Maine where she worked with food banks and food security programs across the state. The end of a relationship ultimately led her to songwriting, to Nashville for a time, and back to Maine. The rural Maine backroads, lifestyle, and unique perspectives that Trunzo had grown to love are now the underpinning inspirations, and sometimes, featured heavily, in the songs of Cabin Fever Dream.

The first song “Kind Bone” is narrated by someone who is recounting a declining relationship and all the times she has asked for mercy. In the first verse, her lover is leaving tomorrow, and he has been too much of a good thing. He has told secrets to the narrator about his other woman “just like I was a man” in the second verse. The last time he comes to see her, the third verse, she lets him know that it has taken time - maybe even geological time - for her to move on, but she has simply had enough. She sends him on his way with the chorus “Turn on your heels if you’ve got a kind bone in your body then we’ll both go home alone.”

“I Work Saturdays” is the second track. Sara’s bio says that “I Work Saturdays” was inspired “directly from an overheard conversation at Moody’s Diner, a midcoast Maine landmark and tourist destination...”. Our storyteller is discussing everyday ups and downs, and doing her level best to hold onto the ups, fight through the downs, and make the most of each day. It is a fascinating slice of life in a seasonal economy for the listener.

There’s a fun, low-key, early 90s pop sound to “Nashville Time.” This is a great foil for the subject matter: two people trying to get together but not quite meeting in the middle. She is making a little more effort than he is, and even though he has gifted her another hour from his day to spend with her (probably taking it away from someone or something else: the colloquial and eponymous “Nashville Time”), it isn’t going to make a significant difference in how he feels about her. 

Uncle Henry’s, a Maine-based regional print classified for “Most Anything Under the Sun” is the basis for “Free for the Taking.” Most likely relatable to those with rural backgrounds, it is a song full of stories, questions and metaphors about all the things to be given away that are not quite perfect, but can be made to work for the right person. The giveaways include the storyteller herself, who says what she is and isn’t, but that she’s got “a perfectly good fixer-upper heart” that is
      “Free for the taking, out there on the curb / If you’re brave and if you’re handy, all you gotta do is get here first.”    

The final track, “Liberty Tool,” is a lovely waltz full of vivid imagery that follows a woman trying to make the best of, and ultimately break free from, traditional male-female relationship roles, and maybe even the relationship itself. Through the song, she describes her life via the labors of the seasons, each of which reflects more discontent than the last. She suggests a day-trip to Liberty Tool for a shopping spree for the traditional husband, while searching for her own metaphoric ”Liberty Tool,” to carve out a new identity in life, lamenting, “since we can’t turn me into a homesteading wife.”

Cabin Fever Dream is a captivating collection of stories that maybe Americana fans have heard, but not in this new-to-us voice. While the stories and voice are noteworthy, Trunzo is unsure of her own status as an artist, stating:

“...I fluctuate in and out of feeling like an artist. I really don’t want to force things, and I want to follow natural momentum. But I don’t lose the belief that songs are magic, and making something beautiful is of value just because. I’m willing to be surprised.” 

Us too, Sara, and thanks for the magic.

Cabin Fever Dream by Sara Trunzo, singer-songwriter-fairy godmother, is available everywhere as of Friday, September 24.

Find out more about Sara here:

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