Jenny McIntyre's voice is delicate to
the point of gauziness at times, like you could tear right through it
if you accidentally placed your finger on a sound wave. It's the voice
of a woman-child calling out from under the bed for all the reasons
children find themselves there: fear and uncertainty, daydreams and
pranks, love and mystery. Her songs seem drawn from a lifetime of
diaries. They're don't tell the truth so much as they tell the tales
of a full and eager heart in a world of disappointments. The songs are
exercises in trying again, in pulling her chin up and readying herself
for the next round of whatever doesn't go right.
At her core, Jenny McIntyre is a singer-songwriter, but she steps
outside of that context whenever she can. From the outset of her debut
album, the shape shift is on: the acoustic guitar finds itself in a
digital universe where Amy Lee meets pop tunes meets indie rocker
snarkiness meets admissions of failure, asking for help and
confession. On top of and through it all—that bird-song voice sings
from whatever strange or spurious branches it finds itself standing
on, clear, persistent, unblinking.
At her live shows, she watches you like a wild animal—shifty but
fascinated, ready to dart away at the first, too-quick movement. But
there's something in her method, the fragile voice and open-selved
lyrics, the occasional bumbled timing with the grinning shrug that
shows just how much she wants to be tamed, placed in a warm palm and
held, reassured that fear isn't the dominant reality, it's just a
weather pattern that can and will pass if the song and the singer just
try hard enough to cuddle up against a listener's heart.
Click "add to cart" to purchase Jenny McIntyre's new album, "Outside the Radio"
$12 [free shipping]
