Sara Syms - Way Back Home

Rating: 3/5

Review:
OK, but nothing special, I'm afraid

I took a chance with this.  I hadn't heard Sara Syms before but I listened to some samples and liked what I heard enough to try the whole album.  Sadly, it didn't really live up to its promise.

Sara Syms has a good voice and sings very well.  She has a good band here, too, but the whole thing sounds just a bit ordinary.  I think the problem is really in the material, which is Americana with a country tinge.  They are perfectly decent songs, but to me they sound a bit generic, so nothing stands out either melodically or lyrically.  As a result, this just rather fades into the background for me with nothing really to hold my attention for long.

There's nothing actually wrong with the album; it's well performed and produced, it sounds perfectly decent and I doubt whether anyone with an interest in this genre would dislike it.  I certainly don't dislike it, but it just doesn't stand out in any way. There's a lot of good Americana around at the moment and we are very blessed with excellent female singer-songwriters on both sides of the Atlantic at the moment;  I find this very ordinary by comparison, I'm afraid.  Others may well like this more than I do, but personallyI can only give it a very qualified recommendation.

(Just in case anyone's interested, these are just some of the albums from female singer songwriters in the last two or three years which I think have been really outstanding.  They are in no particular order:

Mary Gauthier - Trouble & Love
Thea Gilmore - Regardless
Amy Speace - How To Sleep In A Stormy Boat and That Kind Of Girl
Emily Barker - Dear River and The Toerag Sessions
Natalie Merchant - Natalie Merchant and Paradise Is There
Olivia Chaney - The Longest River
Amy LaVere - Runaway's Diary
Sharon van Etten - Are We There
Eliza Gilkyson - Nocturne Diaries
Sarah Jarosz - Build Me Up From Bones
Amanda Shires - Down Fell The Doves
Laura Marling - Short Movie
Alela Diane - About Farewell

Buffy Sainte-Marie – Power In the Blood
Kris Delmhorst - Blood Test

Ana Egge – Bright Shadow

Suzanne Vega – Close-Up Series and Tales From The Realm…
Patty Griffin - American Kid and Servant of Love
Anais Mitchell - Young Man In America
Lori McKenna - Massachusetts
Kacey Musgraves - Same Trailer, Different Park and Pageant Material

Ruth Moody – These Wilder Things)