Weyes Blood & the Dark Juices - The Outside Room
Not Not Fun Records
"Romneydale" is destined to play over the closing credits to a movie, very likely one about small towns and the people who left and the people who never left and limestone quarries and cars that have trunks that open with a gentle kick. Natalie Mering's gorgeous voice jostles with strummed guitar and bits of aural trash. Between the cracks of her downheartedness has settled plumes of poignancy; she's like a widow delivering a eulogy. "Oh, pictures of Romneydale," the Philadelphia native laments. "Still surge through my brain.” Then: "Well, I'm over there / I gotta way to get home / Again, I'm so fine / When I get both ends in Romneydale."
After hearing tracks like "Lost in Dreams" and "Candyboy," I began to consider the line of thought behind the production. Mering's glorious singing voice is smudged over with all sorts of ugliness. Is it because she is too embarrassed to fully showcase her vocal gift or does she believe that all the monstrousness will merely enhance her voice's honeyed beauty? The effect is startling, yet left me yearning to hear Mering lullabying in a quiet room, no instrumentation or electronic babble to blemish her sent-from-Heaven’s-choir-loft voice.
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