Photos courtesy of Tomberlin’s official website and BandCamp. Tomberlin At Weddings
Southern Illinois: dusty, rural, blanketed in corn and soy bean fields, littered with Christian churches. This is the landscape that serves as the backdrop for songwriter Sarah Beth Tomberlin’s first full-length album, At Weddings. The album’s ten songs create a melancholic atmosphere that drifts and meanders across this landscape like a “walk in the breeze,” as she sings in the song “Seventeen.”
Tomberlin’s voice has the rare quality of sounding both confident and vulnerable. She asserts herself in this album as a talented songwriter. Her lyrics are honest and she’s not afraid to hold onto an atmosphere in a song at the risk of sounding repetitive, which is bold for a young songwriter. To her credit, there are usually enough subtle changes in arrangement to keep the songs interesting and engaging.
A Christian upbringing is a buoyant theme that surfaces time and again throughout the album. She reflects on how the loss of her faith still haunts her. In “I’m Not Scared” she sings about how she “always hated church,” and yet in “Any Other Way” she sings about still “feeling bad for saying ‘Oh, my God.'” The influence of church hymns can be heard in the song structure as well. With slightly different lyrics, the song “Seventeen” could be a hymn complete with the vocal reverb that makes it sound like she’s singing in a chapel. This effect is sometimes utilized to an extreme. The song “Untitled 2” is drowning in reverb, making it sound as if elements of the song are underwater. And perhaps sitting through church when one no longer has faith feels a similar way.
Sarah Beth Tomberlin’s sound and lyrics are surprisingly developed for a first album. There are enough transcendent moments here to merit adding At Weddings to one’s personal collection. Some of these moments include the trance-like melodies on “Any Other Way” and “Tornado.”
She nails the lyrics as well as their vocal delivery in the song “I’m not Scared,” the composition of which utilizes a cello during the chorus to heartbreaking effect as she sings the line, “To be a woman is to be in pain.” On “Seventeen,” she laments, “love is mostly war, and love what is it for?” Voices like Tomberlin’s have the potential to breathe new life into the age-old genre of folk music with their honest reflections on pain, loss, and isolation.
Tomberlin’s first tour starts next week (check out her tour dates here). See her live if you can! I look forward to hearing what Tomberlin comes up with next.
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