More than a few records have come together owing to the catharsis of writing about a broken relationship. LA’s Abby Posner raised that whole concept up a notch with her new album Rest And Rise. Taking an idea from a podcast about the 3 stages of grief, Posner organized the tracks like a vinyl release. Side A looks backward at the breakup, and things leading up to it. Side B looks forward, to how things are now and what life has taught her. She then went into the studio and produced, recorded, and played everything herself (with the exception of a vocal harmony on one song and a steel guitar part on another). Obviously those life lessons included a lot of musical skills.
Another of her skills is an ability to rally a crowd in a live show and Until We Heal should provide another focal point for that. A folk protest anthem about the messiness of social progress, it relies on the notion of advancement being a 5 steps up, 3 steps back process. The Moon Is Made of Green Cheese is more of a rock and roll number about choosing to believe in an untruth so you don’t have to deal with the reality of a situation. Less political and more interpersonal, with a singer-songwriter feel, is Lemon Soap, where the metaphor is laundry, with “parts of you that stained between the fold” equating to the remnants of a relationship.
Overall I found the Side B tunes to be a little more engaging, with their focus on a wider variety of topics. Losing Me is a rock and roll ballad reflecting on a feeling we’ve all had about being younger again without all of life’s pressures. In this case, “I wanna play bass in a punk rock band, I wanna be 22 again.” 33 is an acknowledgment of growing self-awareness and emotional maturity, because “it wasn’t like this when I was 33.” Failures On the Wall is more rock than folk in a treatise on the difficulties of life in today’s society, particularly if you’re LGBTQ. It’s also an admonishment to take matters into your own hands because “no one is coming to save us.”
Multi-instrumentalist Abby Posner moves fluidly between genres and performance vehicles, with her compositions gracing everything from Hulu series to international television commercials to being selected as the official hype anthem of the LA Kings NHL team. She’s as involved in the mixing and editing of her material as she is in the writing and recording of it, not because she’s trying to save money but because she’s just good at all of it. You can hear that from top to bottom on her latest album, Rest And Rise.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.