REVIEW: B.B. Cole Of — Love and Loss (LP)
B.B. Cole’s sophomore album, Of Love and Loss, advances the significant strides she made with her debut Outgrowing Ourselves. A dozen songs on the new collection reaffirm her fidelity to traditional country music while developing her singer/songwriter artistry to previously unknown levels. Creativity and vulnerability propel her songcraft into previously uncharted areas, and the musical backing remains exemplary each step of the way. Of Love and Loss is a mature, deeply reflective work, absolutely, but I am equally impressed with how she maintains an even-handed balance between the album’s serious tone and entertaining listeners.
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One consistent quality is that she’s always looking to engage. This is a song cycle existing at close quarters with listeners; she brings you face to face with experiences underlying each track. Her emotional range as a singer is evident from the beginning. “(The Tale of) Lady Primrose” is a diet with the talented singer/songwriter Marc Miner. He only enhances an already outstanding tour de force. However, Cole never throws herself into songs with artless abandon. The interplay she shares with Miner is the track’s unquestionable highlight for me.
“Poor Beatrice” is a great follow-up. I want the bluegrass influences in this song to be a little stronger, but it’s an otherwise A-plus effort. Cole is unafraid to focus on her needs to tell stories and create characters for her songs. Her confidence is well-placed; the debut shared those same predilections, but Of Love and Loss’ songs strike me as more complete, even inspired. Perhaps it’s naïve, but I am impressed by the unblinking self-confidence she has tackling material written in a far different idiom and language than her native tongue. It doesn’t seem to be a daunting proposition at all, and frankly, listeners will never hear even a smattering of her Central European upbringing.
“The Lion and the Virgin” is arguably one of Cole’s best songwriting achievements. It’s during moments such as this where the advance from her first release is glaring. There’s an across-the-board increase in her self-assurance, her effortless talent for vocal transitions, and the high-caliber musicianship in tune with her musical vision. “The Sun Song” maintains that level of excellence. Transitioning from the consummate classic country textures of the preceding cut into B.B. Cole’s take on sultry two a.m. blues is definitely one of the album’s peak moments.
Everything comes together musically. However, it’s the spaces that her band leaves in the arrangement that carry this tune to dizzying heights, and when the lead guitar steps forward for a climatic exclamation point, “The Sun Song” concludes in near epic fashion. It’s one of the album’s most impassioned musical statements. I hear the late album track “Over Before It Started” as a possible crossover hit for Cole that swoops her out of the indie world. However, it has the necessary elements for mass appeal without angling for the lowest common denominator.
She mixes well with guest vocalist Lorae. “Coffee Eyes” ends the collection in a way that only B.B. Cole can. It’s an intensely personal song without wallowing in obscurities and strikes enough of an universal chord that distances dissolve. B.B. Cole’s Of Love and Loss is an entertaining and affecting musical testimony about what it means to be alive.
Colin Jordan
