eMusic Review 0
A question lurks in the background of Laura Stevenson’s Wheel like a party guest invited out of obscure but unbreakable obligation: Once you realize you are going to die, what are you supposed to do about the rest of your life?
From a distance, Stevenson’s songs seem to tally up the standard frayed relationships and rocky familyscapes; up close, in flashes of quiet brutality, she makes the stakes clear. “There was a time when we believed that we could measure out a line just how we wanted it, so we could live just as long as anybody ever did/ but I was wrong,” she concedes over the clamorous ballroom swing of “Bells and Whistles.” On “The Hole,” a nuzzling, solo acoustic thing run aground of a campfire hootenanny, “you are the constant in my constant, you are the salty wind in my sail” could be directed at a reliable lover, or at the specter of death itself.
Stevenson, 28, has made two records already — both as Laura Stevenson and The Cans, both lovely but not quite as focused or self-assured as Wheel. Before, her reference points were so obvious as to be nearly suffocating, her raw-throated bellows and ramshackle accompaniment… read more »
