The Mazda3 Time Machine was stuck in the Now yet again this week, when I found myself out and about in the early (to me) morning hours on two occasions. Instead of flipping through the SiriusXM stations for a blast from the distant past, as I often do, I pushed play on Mikaela Davis’ And Southern Star.
To say that the music pulsates like a supernova would be a bit of a misnomer, as that indicates the star is nearing collapse—and these songs have a millennia left to give, if not longer. Yet that’s where my mind went when listening to the album for the first time last week. The songs, band and Davis’ vocals shine throughout. A better description, perhaps, is that it’s one part folk and one part rock, sounding a bit like Sheryl Crow fronting the Grateful Dead circa American Beauty or Workingman’s Dead. Instead of watching their speed, however, Davis and band drive the songs with a seemingly carefree demeanor; each of the nine tracks sounds like a lost treasure from the early 1970s.
Davis, of course, plays the harp, and that stringed instrument fits right in with the Southern Star ensemble, who’ve long accompanied her on stage—Alex Coté on drums, Cian McCarthy on guitars, Shane McCarthy on bass, and Kurt Johnson on steel guitar. That she named the album after them is appropriate—together, they create magic.
The album opens with “Cinderella,” in which the orphaned waif not only has the blues, but— glass shoe notwithstanding—isn’t who the fabled prince imagines her to be. The gentle “Home in the Country” finds Davis “waiting for the loneliness to find me” while amazed that an on-again, off-again love is again in bloom; that they’re looking for a home in the heart of the country astounds her. “One of These Days,” on the other hand, explores the flip side of happiness, with Davis channeling the poet Denise Levertov: “Like a moth in a cocoon of doubt/Thought that flame was a star/And it burned my, my paper wings….”
“Promise” digs into the disillusionment that sometimes comes in any kind of relationship, be it platonic or romantic: the other isn’t who you expected them to be. Yet, like a moth to a flame, she keeps dancing into his frame—familiarity is comfort, in a sense. “The Pearl,” which follows, is a reminder that heartache (and disappointment in general) often gives birth to something worthwhile. Thematically, “Saturday Morning” is the perfect next song, radiating—as many of the other songs do—a Laurel Canyon vibe: “When the illusion of darkness breaks its spell/Then you’ll finally learn that there’s no such hell.” “Far From You” is a true jewel—or pearl, if you will. Davis sings of the time and distance that’s come between her and an old friend. Her harp and McCarthy’s guitar interlock near the end, and wow. In another era, this song would be all over rock radio.
“Don’t Stop Now” sports a T.Rex feel while unreeling a state-of-the-world address: “The world we thought to be so far ahead/is leaving our forgotten ones for dead.” The closing “Leave It Alone,” on the other hand, wells and swells like an ecstatic jam before an electronic breakdown interrupts the proceedings; that, in an odd way, speaks to the discord in the world today as much as the lyrics in “Don’t Stop Now.”
I’ve been a fan of Davis’ since seeing her open for the Staves in early 2017. Her 2018 album Delivery was indeed—as I called it at the time—a sumptuous sonic stew, but this, her first album since then, is more than that. There’s an urgency to the songs despite many of them being laidback; it’s as if she felt compelled to sing and share them. To borrow a line from Levertov’s “The Resolve,” about a brook imbued with rain rushing to the river, “The sound now/is a direct, intense/sound of direction.” It’s a remarkable album, And Southern Star. One of the best of this year.
The Old Grey Cat 
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