Album Review

I tried not to do it. Really I did. I tried not to start off this album review with the following sentence: If Cat Power and Beth Orton could blend together into one artist- surely that singer/songwriter would be Liz Durrett….

Try as I did, though, comparisons couldn’t be avoided. But bear with me! Comparison and similarity aren’t always bad things and the obvious influence of Cat Power’s Chan Marshall on Durrett’s third album, Outside Our Gates, has only helped Durrett gain surer footing in a genre awash with sound-a-likes.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are a million Cat Power wannabes out there (Scout Niblett comes to mind), but Durrett isn’t one of them. Where Marshall’s wail and thrash is clear and confrontational, Liz Durrett’s voice is muted, her background orchestrations subdued but confident. It’s clear what’s she picked up, but her style is still her own.

In a 2006 interview with Atlanta’s independent weekly, Creative Loafing, Durrett said, “I’m trying to lighten the fuck up…I’ve always used music as an outlet for depression and a therapeutic thing. But I need to branch out, because I’ve done that for so long…I want to push myself a little bit harder.”

To help her lighten up Durrett cribbed some very important notes from Cat Power’s own departure from solemnity, The Greatest. On her previous album, The Mezzanine, Durrett used simple, sparse vocals, delicate piano tinkering, and solo guitar strumming to create an album that, while beautiful, was also beautiful enough to accompany a suicide. But with the opening track of Outside Our Gates, “Wake to Believe,” Durrett shows how much she has learned. Her voice evokes Marshall’s balance between rough hewn wail and low confession, while the addition of Cat Poweresque orchestral instrumentation boosts Durrett’s voice and creates the lighter quality that she wanted to achieve.

Outside Our Gates surges with “Wild as Them” and “Always Signs,” songs in which big horns and dirty guitar illuminate Durret’s powerful and positive side, heretofore hidden in the shadows of her previous releases.

Fans of Durrett’s older albums will appreciate the quieter songs, but even these seem to have been given a shot of light. “The Sea a Dream” is an ethereal homage to the ballad. Whereas the previous Durrett might have contented herself with mere guitar and plaintive voice, the artist now adds confident vocal overlays and airy humming, lacing the track with a dusting of aural Prozac. Other quiet songs, such as “In the Eaves” are brought up from the depths with guitar, drums, cymbals, and the hint of a toy piano.

The album’s highlight is “We Build Bridges,” a song that remains spartan and haunting while sustaining intricate layers of voice and instrument that provide the fresh sound Durrett sought. While listening I couldn’t help but think that this would be the song that I would play as I closed the farmhouse door on a quiet, sunny morning while parting ways with a lover I still loved.

It would be the song that I played while I left my old love, Cat Power, and gave Liz Durrett her turn. With Outside Our Gates she is one step away from finding her own voice and one step away from other artists being compared to her.

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