Liz Durrett Issue #37

Outside Our Gates (Warm Electronic)

By Deirdre Sayre
Published: September 1st, 2008 | 4:41pm

Liz Durrett’s husky high-caliber voice is often compared to modern day muses like Cat Power’s Chan Marshall, but more accurately emulates her old school idol, Nina Simone. On her two previous releases, the Athens, Georgia-based singer’s vivid vocals, supported with sparse instrumentation, took center stage — her songs at their best were spellbinding and at their worst, sleepy. Her latest release, Outside Our Gates exhibits a marked transformation, her once bleak lyrics hinting at hope and her song structure exhibiting more complexity and animation. Crooked Fingers frontman Eric Bachmann produced and arranged Gates, collaborating with an array of Athens musicians (including her uncle, Vic Chesnutt) to catapult the songstress into her own personal baroque period, embellishing her simple songs with strings, horns, accordion, and distortion.

Durrett opens with “Wake To Believe,” finger-plucking her paralysis on nylon stringed guitar as she sings, “Round and round goes the clock / My panic sounds tick tock,” harmonizing with an upright bass and violin. She’s not here to play victim however; the driving drumbeat, ascending guitar solos, and pealing trumpet of standout track “Wild As Them” propel Durrett to “daydream myself a warrior ... wild as them for your revenge.” She pays tribute to a recently abducted Georgian on “Lost Hiker,” climbing a mountain in accompaniment to the piano’s minor melody. Companion track, “All of Them” trades in depression for enigmatic keyboard loops, pulsing drums, and surging violins, as Durrett sweetly sings of taking “small solace in this / In everyone a summons awaits.” With the exception of the overpowering droning on “Note For a Girl,” Durrett has escaped the sluggishness hampering her previous output.

—