Year of Meteors

Laura Veirs

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 23, 2005)
• Original Release Date: August 23, 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B000A14OEC
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #94,867 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
On her fifth album, the Seattle songwriter-cum-brainy chanteuse once again creates her austere emotional moonscapes, but this time she's molded them into a high-concept travelogue that seems to be about going on a rather somber vacation, or moving from one place to another. The scenery blurs, but you can pick out her brittle eccentric images, full of specific details that seem to draw you in closer to her cold flame--with Laura Veirs, both God and the Devil are in the details. She has a very specific, but skewed, vision that makes you feel she's just reporting events as they unfold, but she sings and writes with such detachment, you wonder where her autobiography ends and her observational skills kick in. On this record they seem a little closer to home. There's an elegant, sad quality and a jagged yearning here, forcing you to be silent witness to this exquisite, seductive pain. --Jaan Uhelszki

Product Description
Seattle-based singer-songwriter Laura Veirs calls her 2005 Nonesuch release Year of Meteors "a road record." "It doesn't sound like one," she says, "but it is." Veirs had spent most of 2004 touring in support of the hauntingly beautiful Carbon Glacier, her breakthrough effort and Nonesuch debut. She started out in Europe, where she was greeted with overwhelming critical praise and sold-out houses. Then Veirs worked her way around the States, where she was still just being discovered (though the reviews were also often superlative). The experience was at times heady, other times grueling, and she incorporated it into her new songs. However, given Veirs' vividly descriptive yet dream-like lyrics, you won't learn anything about her actual itinerary. Year of Meteors is no ordinary travelogue, but it will definitely take you on a remarkable journey.

"All the songs are about transportation, motion," Veirs explains. "If you listen to the words, there's always some movement happening, whether it's greyhounds running down a mountainside as mud flows or a person flying off into the sun or someone lurking around the bottom of the sea. I think that's because I was in motion so much of the year. Somehow I knew that all the traveling would come into the songs, but I wanted to remain focused on the bigger things, not just life on the road, so that's why there are no direct references to that." There are, she hastens to add, "love songs related to that experience, like the struggles of being away from home and your partner. Or having my band and the different relationships I have formulated, many of them very close because of the intense circumstances of touring. So it's a relationship record too."

And, finally, it's a band record: a fertile collaboration between Veirs and her studio band, the Tortured Souls (who often play live with her)--Steve Moore (piano, organs), Karl Blau (bass, guitar, vocals), and producer Tucker Martine (drums, percussion, treatments). Viola player Eyvind Kang, another longtime associate, also sat in. As Veirs explains, "When we talked about making the album, we decided to record a lot of these songs as a band first, then do some more of the solo type of songs. It had always been the opposite before, I would go in and record the more quiet guitar parts and sing. This time, half of the record or more are tracks that we did live as a band first. Then we went in and recorded the quieter ones. We approached this from the beginning more as a band album and it really turned out that way."

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars brand new fan, August 29, 2005

By	MD Steven "Steven (PVM) in Asheville" (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews

From my first peek at the cover of Laura Veirs' new disc "Year of Meteors" I knew I would most likely like the record. She looks like a friend I've not yet hung out with but soon we will cross paths.
This is my only Laura Veirs encounter, so I open the disc and listen to it first out of a huge stack of discs needing my attention. Two songs in I realize that this will need a few more spins to fully hear it. Halfway through I hear the influences I like, yet find it wholly original.
I wonder if Laura likes Liz Phair, Suzanne Vega, or solo Kimya Dawson.
It's a little folky, some parts trippy (Steve Moore on keys), indie rocking and totally accessible pop. Eyvind Kang makes a guest appearance on viola lending some beautiful sounds with his powerful lead. He gives Parisian Dream an other worldly sound that melds perfectly with Laura's poetry
Tucker Martine produces and provides the beat. His production is a sonically beautiful wall of sound with everyone right up front. I love the mix of electric and acoustic and keyboards on "Through the Glow", it somehow reminds me of Peter Gabriel's last outing with Genesis (believe it or not) on 'Lamb Lies Down' or later on on 'So'. The phrasing is delicious throughout.
This is a mighty talented group who seem to all be on the same plain. I wonder what they have up their collective sleeves and hope they'll come through to my town.
Though I could sit down and watch em play, I'd be right up front leaning on the stage watching them putting those notes together with Laura's gorgeous poetry.

5 stars and recommended listening to fans of beautiful music.

Steven (PVM) Asheville

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spaced-out Contemporary Folk, December 20, 2005

By	Mark D. Prouse "Dustyart" (Riverdale (Bronx), NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having loved parts of Carbon Glacier, I was curious to know what Ms. Veirs would be up to next. Well, she surpassed all my expectations, and I have gone from being a casual fan to being a really big one with the very first listen to Year Of Meteors. While it took some effort to enjoy the previous album, which is gorgeous but somehow remote and tentative, this CD asserts itself right out of the gate on the odd "Fire Snakes," with its arrangement of blips and bleeps. The set almost never lets up from there, with "Galaxies," "Where Gravity Is Dead" and "Parisian Dream" particular standouts. Comparisons by other reviewers on this page to Suzanne Vega are apt, but I think Veirs is more like Imogen Heap, with her fascination with spaced-out, electronic accompaniment and swooping, wide-ranging melodies. Laura is more deadpan in her vocal delivery (which I guess is why so many listeners thought of Ms. Vega). Very few weak moments on Year of Meteors; I highly recommended this!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Years Best Singer/Songwriter, November 2, 2005

By	Dean Van Nguyen (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Had Laura Veirs never picked up a guitar she still probably would have become a poet, performing in front of small audiences in coffee houses all over her home state of Seattle. Fortunately music became her calling and has given her a platform for her beautiful lyrics. Enter producer Tucker Martine and his band that have injected some good old fashion pop sensibilities to Veirs' music bringing her to a wider audience. Year of Meteors is her fourth and finest album. The intoxicating style is still intact, but now thanks to Martine's arrangement her songs have more bite.