Alela Diane: About Farewell

Great break-up albums are sometimes hard to listen to, so confessional are the emotions contained therein. From Blood On The Tracks to Noah And The Whale’s The First Days Of Spring and Josh Ritter’s The Beast Within, there’s a rawness and vulnerability that’s like the aural equivalent of watching the faces of those family members left behind as a coffin is lowered into the ground. About Farewell, the fourth album from Portland, Oregon-based country songstress, Alela Diane, isn’t for the faint-hearted.
Stepping away from the full band sound of 2011’s Alela Diane & Wild Divine, most of this album is based around simple guitar and vocals, augmented by strings, drums and even piano and flute, the latter courtesy of sometime Horse Feathers and Efterklang member Heather Broderick.
The fulcrum around which it all turns is Diane’s remarkably emotive voice, nowhere moreso than on the remarkable title-track, a powerfully simple, guitar and twangy vocals affair that oozes teary-eyed melancholia like roadkill seeps guts and entrails, as Alela details the last days of love, possibly relating to her recent divorce: “Seven years to you, dear heart, is all that I can give/And I know that without me, you’ll find just what you need”.
‘The Way We Fall’ morphs from a reasonably standard country blues affair, all founded on a delightfully smoky rhythm section, into a truly gorgeous, spine-tinglingly delicate ending that feels somehow Tudor, without any of the pretentiousness that implies. Then there’s the beautiful multi-tracked vocals of ‘Colorado Blue’, the tear-stained litany of ‘Before The Leaving’, the gorgeous ‘I Thought I Knew’ and the remarkable ‘Hazel Street’, where recollections and reflections come thick and fast, as Alela shakes metaphysical hands with the ghosts of lovers past.
It’s not easy listening, but Diane’s haunting delivery compels you to stick around ‘til the end. There are no bells and few whistles, just simple arrangements that allow Diane’s remarkably emotive voice to slowly cut you to the quick.

Key Track: 'About Farewell'