Laura Veirs is one of the better-kept secrets of the Pacific Northwest music scene, and it's a shame she's not more well known. This is her fifth album, and it's an idiosyncratic and beguiling affair.
Veirs (pronounced "veerz") seems like the brainy, probably unpopular girl you knew in school, who was interested in both science and poetry, slightly threatening in her intensity. A scan of her bio confirms the impression: she had embarked on a college course that included geology as well as Mandarin Chinese before she realized she really wanted to be a musician.
Veirs is now based in Seattle, and the lyrical imagery on Year of Meteors seems to very much reflect the natural surroundings -- especially water, but also lots of sky and air metaphors. The music she lays down with her band, the Tortured Souls (Tucker Martine, Steve Moore and Karl Blau), similarly reflects the watery and airy themes. Her music has been classified as surreal Americana and indie-folk, but it pretty much defies labels. Her voice sounds a little like early Liz Phair, but she's no bedroom-recording, potty-mouthed indie diva. She and her band-mates mold guitars, keyboards and synthesizers into evocative soundscapes on which to float her lyrics.
The songs on Meteors all require close attention to tease out the meanings. They run mostly to mid-tempo folk-rock fare, with a few that are more up-tempo and beat-oriented. But the focus here is really on the words, intricately poetic lyrics delivered in a voice that ranges from deadpan to intense.
"Fire Snakes," with its intricately fingerpicked acoustic guitar and burbling synthesizer, seems to be a first-person retelling of the siren's tale in The Odyssey. "Galaxies" is full of erotic poetry over distorted electric guitar riffs, lyrics that reflect the confusion of love and lust: "When we kiss, when we kiss/bears and boulders vibrate through the air." And the album leaps from one intensely poetic song to another . . . "Magnetized" focuses on the obsession of love ("Slain by your zirconium smile/I was slain by your olivine eyes"). "Parisian Dream" portrays a confusing dream-state, shifting from one subject and setting to another with no warning but the changes in the music, starting out with a Celtic lilt and shifting before the last verse to a pentatonic Chinese melody -- played on viola by Eyvind Kang. "Cool Water" contrasts one lover's feelings of wanting to soar in the air with the other's desire to meld with the earth. "Spelunking" uses caving as metaphor for everyone's deep fears of letting anyone see what's inside their heart. "Lake Swimming" contrasts the warmth of a lake with the coldness of the sea, all in a metaphor of rebirth and renewal ("shucking free our deadened selves/like snakes and corn do/our bodies tore off swimming suits/and all the old notions . . ."
There's lots more. As cerebral as it is joyful and playful, Year of Meteors is top-notch music.
