Search - Caroline Herring :: Lantana

Lantana
Caroline Herring
Lantana
Genres: Country, Folk, Pop
 
  •  Track Listings (10) - Disc #1

Caroline Herring confidently returns to the forefront of the American roots music scene with her new album Lantana. The Mississippi-born, Atlanta-based singer/songwriter took the producing helm for the first time on the ne...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Caroline Herring
Title: Lantana
Members Wishing: 2
Total Copies: 0
Label: Signature Sounds
Original Release Date: 1/1/2008
Re-Release Date: 3/4/2008
Genres: Country, Folk, Pop
Styles: Bluegrass, Traditional Folk, Contemporary Folk
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 701237201023

Synopsis

Album Description
Caroline Herring confidently returns to the forefront of the American roots music scene with her new album Lantana. The Mississippi-born, Atlanta-based singer/songwriter took the producing helm for the first time on the new record, co-producing with long-time collaborator Rich Brotherton (Robert Earl Keen). Intimate, powerful and honest, Lantana is a masterpiece of understated intensity and in many ways an artistic re-birth for Herring. After making a name for herself in Mississippi as band member and co-founder of the now renowned Thacker Mountain Radio music series, Herring moved to Austin, TX. Herring quickly took the town by storm, releasing the critically acclaimed debut album, Twilight. She won Best New Artist at both the 2002 SXSW Austin Music Awards and also from the Austin American Statesman. Herring soon after released an equally impressive follow-up, Wellspring. In many ways Lantana is Herring's re-imaging of the Gothic South, with a rich alto voice that soothes the listener even as she addresses difficult subjects. Herring has a journalist's eye for detail, a poet's sense of scale and language, and a life-long Southerner's understanding of the issues that shape the culture below the Mason Dixon line. There is no artifice on Lantana. It's an album full of delights, lyrically and musically. And just like Caroline Herring, her new album is the real thing.

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CD Reviews

The Best...Period
Georgianne Nienaber | New Orleans | 03/07/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is about time that excellent writing and singing is making its way back into the genre of Americana. Herring nails every single track on Lantana, and national critics should be shouting from the rooftops that art and Americana can co-exist. Lately, it seems that big name music critics are sycophants and dilettantes who are as about as reliable as movie critics. Read the previous review on this page. It says what national critics should be saying. Go buy this CD and support real writing and real musicianship--and return credibility to music that comes from the heart of the landscape that nurtured Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner.



Unlike many Americana singer/songwriters who hide behind the banners of true iconic artists like Emmy Lou Harris and Lucinda Williams, Caroline Herring grabs their standards and rides like Joan d'Arc through the images of the southland--firmly planting her flag in the red dirt of the Mississippi Delta.



Viva Santa Caroline Herring! Viva La Pucelle d'Mississippi!









"
Austin American Statesmen review
Caroline Gear | 03/04/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)

"The sour certainty of a lover's infidelity often slips a murder ballad's trigger. Caroline Herring chooses to measure unconditional love's disintegration instead. "I confessed that, for love's sake, I drowned my children in John D. Long Lake," the Atlanta-based songwriter sings on "Paper Gown." "They're with Jesus, looking down at me in this paper gown." True story: That's Susan Smith deteriorating underneath the weight of a malevolent Carolina moon.



Herring flawlessly reports the grisly material. Presented with corresponding degrees of damnation and empathy, her watertight assessment of the 1994 American tragedy would be a crowning achievement for most artists. On "Lantana" -- an embarrassment of riches drawing the straightest line between tradition and transition this side of Adrienne Young -- it only rates halfway up the chart.



More treasured moments -- coming-of-age bookends "Heartbreak Tonight" and "Fair and Tender Ladies," say, or the closing "Song for Fay" -- celebrate women and strength in vulnerability. Every attempt pierces its mark. In fact, few folk albums since Young's 2005 hallmark "The Art of Virtue" have proved a more thorough success. Herring's endearing maternal memorandum "Lover Girl" -- "Even now we're dancing, longing for a place to know," she sings -- alone suggests its undying resilience.



Now, grab hold of a sturdy beam before spinning "Midnight on the Water." Talk about the hollow aftermath of faded love. Echoing like a cannon in a cockpit, Herring distills the traditional fiddle tune into arguably the purest representation of heartache since "Goodnight Irene."



"The scenes were there as in a mirror made by the moon upon the water and our love was never stronger," she gently warbles. "The picture was broken by the waves we left behind at midnight on the water, once upon a time." Even decades of scratching, of course, won't remove the deepest stains of regret.



Recommended: "Paper Gown," "Midnight on the Water," "Song for Fay" -- Brian T. Atkinson

"
Best yet
Alton Gray | Norfolk, VA | 02/06/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is her third album and her best yet. I have the other two and have enjoyed them but think she has never sounded better (or written better songs) than here. She is a sensitive, literate songwriter with a good voice and well worth hearing. If you haven't heard her yet start here."