Bluebird
It’s tempting to hear every song on Dawn Landes’ 2014 album *Bluebird* as a commentary on her recent divorce from singer/songwriter Josh Ritter, who had used much of his previous album, *Beast in Its Tracks*, to relay information about their 18-month marriage. But aside from a few songs like “Try to Make a Fire Burn Again” or “Cry No More,” Landes doesn’t seem to dwell too much on the chain of events that led the two musicians to move on. That doesn’t mean there aren’t emotionally powerful moments on *Bluebird*; its 10 songs flow with a restrained beauty, where even the use of a string section on the lovely “Lullabye for Tony” is hardly grand but deep and rich. Landes (a Louisville, Ky., native) showed great strength and taste on the underrated *Fireproof* in 2008, and her years engineering other people’s albums have only sharpened her own arrangements. Here, Landes is assisted by producer Thomas Bartlett (a.k.a. Doveman). From the opening title track to the piano-based finale, “Home,” her songs come together with a sense of precision.
Landes returns with an album made in the wake of a divorce, but rather than wallow in self-pity, she searches for the positives.
If there’s anything wrong with Brooklyn-via-Kentucky singer-songwriter Dawn Landes’ seamless fifth album, it’s that it’s just too damn nice.
When your marriage collapses and your world falls apart, what next? For songwriters, tradition dictates you channel the sadness into a ‘breakup record’; an epithet that Dawn Landes begrudgingly accepts as befitting her latest album.