Sarah Jaffe, Suburban Nature
Self-aware, emotional folk without the pity party
On her full-length debut, Suburban Nature, folk singer/songwriter Sarah Jaffe cycles through several phases of heartbreak: denial, indifference, guilt, forgiveness, hope. She knows it's coming in "Before You Go," an unflinching waltz that starts the album with the line "My heart pretends not to know how it ends," and it's not until the ending track, "Perfect Plan," that there seems to be any sign of that hope. But while it surely sounds sad, Jaffe's confidence in both her words and the music behind them prove her ability to call her feelings as she sees them without handing out invites to the pity party.
In "Wreaking Havoc," over low string swells she sings, "Let's give our problems a name/ We both like pain." And in the tongue-in-cheek but still emotionally loaded "LUV" she spells out "This L-U-V is a B-I-G L-O-A-D, a P-I-L-E of B-U-L-L S-H-I-T" over mournful, plucked guitar chords. In "Clementine," the upbeat standout track, Jaffe starts with heavily emphasized and slightly twangy vowels in the line "50 states, 50 lines, 50 crying all the times/ 50 boys, 50 lies, 50 I'm gonna change my minds," but then switches to an airy whisper to confess, "All that time wasted/ I wish I was a little more delicate." Whatever kind of mess she was in — and these songs probably rose from a few of them — it's likely that her honesty and self-awareness helped her come out on top.
