Laura Stevenson - Wheel
Don Giovanni, 2013
Wheel is so elegant it’s hard to believe Laura Stevenson comes from the DIY punk rock world via Bomb the Music Industry!. Here 2011 album Sit/Resist still had a lot of those DIY elements to it, but Wheel feels like it is coming from another planet. It’s so confident, and a perfect example of what happens when an artist puts everything into their recording. Her voice is one of my favorites in indie rock, right up there with Frances Quinlan. The waves of emotion that crash over you in the opener “Renee” is more than most albums have in their entirety. I couldn’t stop listening to this one in 2013, and I still listen to it regularly. It blends Stevenson’s knack for upbeat pop (“Runner” is an especially perfect indie-pop jam) and these tender, hushed ballads that take your breath away (“Every Tense,” “The Wheel,” “L-Dopa”). Not to mention the perfect little acoustic number “The Move” that was my introduction to the album. Figuring out where this album fit on the list was tricky, and of all the albums on the list it’s the one that covered the most ground. It started somewhere in the 20s, but that didn’t sit right, and all I had to do was put on “The Wheel” and it got bumped up a few slots. Stevenson is so unguarded on that track that it’s almost too much every time. I still don’t know what or who that song is about but every time I listen to it I get verklempt. It’s an album I want to say, “Thank you for sharing that with me” after every time I listen to it.
