Cinder Well: “Cadence” (2023) CD Review

Cinder Well is the project of Amelia Baker, a singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist and fiddle player who is from California but spent a good deal of time in Ireland. That country clearly influenced the music on Baker’s 2020 release, No Summer, one of my favorite albums of that year. She has now returned to California, and has a new album, Cadence, which takes some of its inspiration from the central California coastline. And yet while there is a lot of natural imagery in these songs, there is also a sense of being between worlds, of being both of the earth and above it. The album features all original material. Joining Amelia Baker on this release are Phillip Rogers on drums, Neal Heppleston on bass, Jake Falby on viola, Cormac MacDiarmada on fiddle, and Nich Wilbur on organ.

The album opens with a gorgeous song titled “Two Heads, Grey Mare.” There is something haunted yet confident in her vocal delivery, and there is a darkness in the guitar work. It is song that comes from the night. Spirits seem to inhabit or possess the strings, their voices coming in waves through the instruments, growing stronger as the track progresses. And as you might expect from Cinder Well, this track features some intriguing lyrics, such as these lines: “We weathered the night in a drunken croon/Another trick in the tide and you’re gone too soon.” That is followed by “Overgrown.” The brief instrumental introduction is like a warm swell of morning magic, before the guitar and her vocals take over. The song’s first lines are captivating: “Starlings burst the bleeding sun/The stone underfoot comes undone/I do know more slowly we will ramble/Those strong bones of us more fickle.” There is something gentle and at ease in her approach to this one, which works to soothe us as well, and the strings here are sometimes like strong shafts of light coming down upon us, and passing.

There is a strong sense of rhythm to the guitar work at the beginning of “Returning,” like a slow walk, working so well with the song’s opening lines, “Leather boots, heavy armor/Like brambles, like dust.” And soon there is the sense of a time long ago, brought to the present for us by her voice. She delivers another beautiful performance. And check out these striking lyrics: “You may sense my lonesome shadow/Distance between us has carved a hollow/Winding stillness, echo chamber/Time has taken its toll on me.” Am I mad, or at one moment right before the end, does she call out “B”? Then as the album’s title track begins, it has a somber, spiritual vibe. A strong atmosphere is soon established, one that has us a bit on edge, in part because of the electric guitar, though that fiddle then works to soothe us, like a warmer wind across the landscape. Amelia Baker’s voice seems to be carried by a wind too, at moments, a voice originating in, and traveling from, a distant place and time, some eternal place. This track has a steady beat that knows no hurry, for spirits and the earth itself have no need for celerity or haste. “Your heart is breaking forth/And you know what pain is for.” The song ends as it began. That is followed by “Well On Fire,” her voice supported by strings. It is a short, but strong piece. “It won’t be long now/I am close to it now/I am closer somehow.”

A casual, gentle, unhurried rhythm is established at the beginning of “Crow,” fitting lines like “Take your time to let them in/Hold your breath when the wall gets thin.” And I love the work on fiddle in the middle of the track. This song tells of a natural world, yet gives us a sense of the extraordinary within the seemingly ordinary, and there is a tension within some of the music, particularly in that instrumental section as the song approaches its conclusion. That’s followed by “Gone The Holding,” which features a beautiful vocal performance. “Gone the holding we were in/From the cold Atlantic wind/Ferry port, metal wing/To other shores us they bring.” There is a timeless magic in the music. Then the first stanza of “A Scorched Lament” is delivered a cappella, and so an intimacy is created between her and us as the track begins. The guitar comes in for the second stanza, and the piece grows from there. “Blackbird, blackbird will you call/Blackbird, blackbird will you come/Sing us over with your scorched lament.” There is some beautiful work on strings at the end. The album then concludes with “I Will Close In The Moonlight,” here her vocals supported by piano. It is interesting how several of these tracks contain images of birds and flying, from the starlings of “Overgrown” to “Crow,” from the “metal wing” and blackbirds of “Gone The Holding” to the blackbird and wings of “A Scorched Lament” and the nightingale and planes of this song. “We are childless and wandering/But the nightingale comes back to sing/And I hope to see you again.”

CD Track List

1. Two Heads, Grey Mare
2. Overgrown
3. Returning
4. Cadence
5. Well On Fire
6. Crow
7. Gone The Holding
8. A Scorched Lament
9. I Will Close In The Moonlight

Cadence is scheduled to be released on April 21, 2023 on Free Dirt Records.