Jolie Holland | The Living And The Dead

Anti- (2008)

By MIKAEL WOOD | October 8, 2008

3.0 Stars

After making a name for herself with a series of hushed, spooky chamber-folk releases she recorded while living in San Francisco, Jolie Holland relocated last year to Brooklyn, a move you can hear reflected throughout The Living and the Dead, on which she ups the volume in an apparent attempt to make herself heard above the subway and the taxis and the guy upstairs Jazzercising at three in the morning. Because she owns one of current roots music’s most compelling voices — imagine a bird being strangled, but in a pretty way — Holland doesn’t really need the added rock-band muscle; she’d be worth hearing accompanied only by the tap of her own toe. Yet thanks to contributions from a handful of A-list indie types (among them M. Ward, Marc Ribot, and Carla Bozulich), the beefed-up arrangements don’t hurt. In “Your Big Hands,” she and her pals work up a rowdy roadhouse groove worthy of Car Wheels–era Lucinda Williams. And “Mexico City” has ringing ’60s-pop guitar twinkles that give her melancholy travelogue a welcome splash of whimsy.

JOLIE HOLLAND | Museum of Fine Arts’ Remis Auditorium, 365 Huntington Ave, Boston | November 1 at 7:30 pm | $20 | 617.369.3189 or www.mfa.org

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Topics: CD Reviews , Lucinda Williams, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, More

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