Laura Veirs
July Flame - RAVEN MARCHING BAND
FILTER Grade: 83%

On July Flame, the seventh album from Portland-based Laura Veirs, we find the singer-songwriter in a folkier mood than on recent releases. Gone is the band that previously backed her recordings, and in its place, a greater focus on achieving stripped-down intimacy. Quietly strummed opener “I Can See Your Tracks” accomplishes this immediately, and particularly well. Its lyrics ache of longing, and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James highlights the track with backing vocals reminiscent of a crying train whistle—an image that beautifully complements the song’s overall imagery. But July Flame isn’t entirely about sparsity, and Veirs shows off a relaxed-yet-playful nature toward the album’s latter half via horn sections (“Summer is the Champion”) and string arrangements (“Wide-Eyed, Legless”). It turns out Veirs hasn’t actually abandoned instrumentation; she’s just trying out a new kind. And what she ends up with is her best, most sophisticated record to date.