During its softer moments,
Madeline’s fourth album harkens back to the folk revival of mid-century America, when singers wrote pastoral songs on their acoustic guitars and sang them with soft, lilting voices.
Black Velvet is no solo affair, though. It’s a collaboration of sorts, featuring a full backup band whose contributions help pull
Madeline’s songs out of the bedroom and into a more public place. The band adds a poppy groove to “Don’t Put Me Down,” and turns “Possum” into a
Mazzy Star-esque ballad, complete with codeine-slow percussion and puddles of guitar arpeggios. Even so,
Madeline is still the star of this show, and her quirky alto is at the forefront of every song. She sings with a quick, fluttery vibrato, evoking
Joanna Newsom by way of
Joni Mitchell, and her lyrics are just as whimsical as her vocals, whether she’s pondering
Johnny Cash’s life in the afterworld (“If
Johnny Cash is up in heaven, then he’s bored to death and probably wondering where the hell the jukebox is”) or crooning about whales and salamanders. For longtime fans, though,
Black Velvet is at its most interesting whenever she trades her acoustic guitar for its electric cousin and leads her band through loose, psychedelic rock songs like “Red Light Bulb.” She may be a folkie at heart, but there’s some grit beneath her pretty songwriting. ~ Andrew Leahey