The Last Mixed Tape reviews Head Above The Water, the third studio album from songwriter Brigid Mae Power.
Head Above The Water is the type of album that just floats on by. A serene , dreamlike record, Brigid Mae Power’s latest offering is one that resides in a reverberant textural world of its own making as Power’s beguiling voice weaves itself around a music with great depth.
The molasses-like sway and tempo of ‘On A City Night’ opens Head Above The Water with a lush alt-country sound that finds Brigid Mae Power’s vocal merging with the rising slide guitar and full-bodied backing harmonies to create a gentle but vivid introduction to the long-form songwriting of the album as a whole.
Throughout tracks like the dreamy ‘Wedding Of A Friend’, rhythmically twisting ‘We Weren’t Sure’ and the stark ‘Not Yours To Own’, Brigid Mae Power’s songwriting is brought to life as every story is told with the artist’s expressive vocal soaring. From one song to the next the words meld themselves to the music in intensity and repose, intertwining the emotional and sonic depth of Head Above The Water into one working tapestry.
The sprawling slow-motion delve into ‘I Was Named After You’ is were Head Above The Water truly shines. Clocking in at over six minutes, the expansive musicality and gradually layering build of the song are made all the more powerful by Brigid Mae Power’s haunting vocal. Indeed, Power’s voice is central to the album’s success, strong enough to never become fully engulfed by the tidal production that surrounds it and delicate enough to make you feel every reaching note and word, it leads the music and the listener around the intricate world of Head Above The Water.
And so it goes, Brigid Mae Power’s Head Above The Water is an album in the classic sense. Made to be experienced as a complete piece, the sonic cohesion and over-arching hypnotic sense of the music created to result in a record that feels like a painting cast across a large canvas where shape and colour draw you further into the entangled emotional twist the artist went through to make it.
