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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
nearly perfect, completely captivating, January 23, 2009
Sometimes there appears a voice heard on the periphery, and once you hear it you can only hear it again and again; it's like eating at the Bellagio Buffet, with all the style and variety there is no option but to consume more until explosion is imminent.
Such is the case with Jolie Holland. As with other alt-country sirens such as Neko Case, Holland is deliciously, completely captivating, particularly on her new album The Living and the Dead. Her voice is so full and nuanced that without careful attention to her lyrics one can and probably will hang on her every note like a shipwrecked Greek sailor.
More so than on previous releases, Holland raises the tempo on this album, making it more accessible for newbies. And though I am scrambling to recollect the milieu of her past releases, I can say that The Living and the Dead is more oriented toward rock `n roll than it typically would be a clever mash of blues, folk and country. Another reason why I favor L&D is the inclusion of some first rate guitarists such as M. Ward and Marc Ribot lending their talents.
As if Holland didn't already emulate the alt-country / southwestern genre at its most unique, this particular album cements her emergence. Mexico City, Corrido por Buddy, and Palmyra are immaculate, with Fox in its Hole and Your Big Hands as the other standout songs. Though quality, the remaining songs just don't reach the heights as the others, and thus the album as a whole is slightly incomplete for me; were a different closing song chosen rather than the more frolicky Enjoy Yourself, L&D would have been less anti-climactic and thus perfect.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unabashedly Delicious, October 12, 2008
This is Jolie Holland's most listener-friendly album to date. (And I love everything she's ever done.) She has emerged from the haunting darkness of "Springtime Can Kill You" to an exuberant, confident, rockin' masterpiece. I have been playing it continuously since I got it; I'm so grateful to have music like this to fall in love with.
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Jolie goes to show you don't ever know, October 15, 2008
With The Living and the Dead, Jolie Holland continues to find her way towards normalcy yet still delivers a good, and at times great album. Springtime Can Kill You grew on me quite slowly over the past couple years, and I think that's where I'm at with The Living and the Dead.
The weirdest thing about this album is that it has her biggest stars to date (namely Marc Ribot and M. Ward) yet musically it's sometimes her most generic album. As much as I love some of these songs, they'd be even better were they brought to life via the bands on Catalpa, Escondida or Springtime.
Mexico City is the sonic equivalent of the American Traditional style of tattooing and Corrido Por Buddy most suffers from the band at hand. Palmyra is, for me, one of the premier examples of just how overhyped a guitarist Marc Ribot is. There is nothing here you've not heard before, which is a shame as in the past Jolie's albums have had singular moments in the history of American music. As much as I like the strength of some of these songs, their execution is generally much more common than Old Fashioned Morphine, Darlin Ukelele, Black Hand Blues, or most importantly, ALLEY FLOWERS, etc... or even Stubborn Beast, Crazy Dreams, etc... from the Springtime album...
...but then you get a song like Fox In Its Hole. Slow and drippy like electric molasses, it features Ribot's best playing (On a National, and still nowhere near what Bob Brozman could have brought to this song). With today's American climate, it's impossible for me to hear these lyrics and think of "honey" as a metaphor for anything less than consumerism, materialism and oil. If you ever saw the quiet, pained Come Early Morning with one of Ashley Judd's best performances, you'll be able to imagine Sweet Loving Man and The Future working perfectly within that story.
With Love Henry, if you have the required old-timey training you'll instantly recognize this song and/or the family of traditional tunes from which it comes. This is a highlight moment of her career, and on harp-guitar she delivers the best guitar playing of the album.
It may end up that of her 4 albums so far, this will be my 4th favorite. The darkened, modernistic pre-war country voodoo blues of the first 2 albums is gone but it still shows an artist of great emotional depth and evolving talents. Right now I think of it more in the realm of 3 stars simply because while Carla Bozulich grows deeper and more introspective (as on Hello, Voyager and Dandelions On Fire, I'll never understand why product links for this fantastic album are never an option though this site carries and sells it), Jolie keeps moving closer to normal. Still, I greatly enjoy this album. Experience has shown me that I always think more highly of her albums over time.
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Interact With Your Music: Discover, listen to, and buy new music, all from the pages of SPIN's digital edition, free to Amazon customers.
~ Lucinda Williams
~ Neko Case
~ Jolie Holland
~ Jenny Lewis
~ Ray LaMontagne
by Jolie Holland 
