As the novelist Thomas Wolfe famously said, “you can’t go home again.” It was in the context of returning to the physical place you grew up. But what if it’s your musical home we’re talking about? That emotional, sonic world that shaped your cultural ties? Nashvillian Kashena Sampson is exploring just that journey on her third album, Ghost Of Me. After listening to it, I’d have to say the evidence is that you can return.
Although Sampson’s first two records reflected the Americana/country leanings of her current home, this project reflects the 90’s indie rock and pop music that she listened to growing up. The title track has a moody, soundtrack-noir feel to it. It’s not quite Morrissey melancholy, but you can see it from there. Speaking of alienation, Fucked Up Love does Radiohead better than they do in a tale of learning from a dysfunctional relationship. When she sings “I could do so much better than you, now I know,” there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Heartache is full of drums and synthesizers and noisy guitars in another song from the darkness where she’s “pretending that I’m OK in the fire.”
Sampson doesn’t completely forsake her current roots music environment, though. Rearview Mirror, a co-write with Caroline Spence, has a kind of classic rock sound to it and you can hear a touch of Stevie Nicks, which she’s been compared to in the past, in the vocal delivery. The song is one of the self-discovery that comes with realizing sometimes clarity comes with time. Tragedy Of Love is a little more of a singer-songwriter number. There’s a bit of heaviness maybe sourced from a youthful dalliance with grunge. Thick As Thieves is folk rock in the style of some of Springsteens’ less anthemic work. It’s full of luscious visual images of moments with a best friend: “driving nowhere windows down, cigarettes, neon lights, and sounds.”
It’s not at all unusual for an artist to do a cover of a song, or songs, that influenced them in their youth. And they’re generally pretty open about those inspirations. Kashena Sampson has taken that one step further and recreated those sounds from scratch. As a result, Ghost Of Me is just that. It’s an homage to the music that shaped her, but featuring the life that came after. It’s a journey you don’t want to miss.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.