Jarosz is for Lovers
A delightful new album from Sarah Jarosz pairs singer-songwriter intimacy with tuneful flourishes of 90's country.
Sarah Jarosz - Polaroid Lovers
It’s amazing what a change of scenery can do. Texas-born Sarah Jarosz spent years as part of New York’s acoustic music scene, creating a series of handsome singer/songwriter albums both on her own and as part of the roots trio I’m With Her. Then she migrated to Nashville, recording a colorful, richly textured album called Polaroid Lovers— an audible expansion of her comfort zone, and immediately her best record to date.
That’s no mean feat given Jarosz’ pedigree; at 32, she has already become a darling of the Americana scene, cementing her reputation with a pair of Grammy wins. Everything that made her early albums beloved— her smart lyrics, her intimate performance style, her love of the rustle and twang of acoustic instruments— survives her Nashville transplant unscathed. But where previous albums favored an austere production, this one is more extroverted and broadly accessible, marrying singer/songwriter bona fides to the tuneful panache of 90s-era country.
Polaroid Lovers doesn’t only attest a change of scenery, but an entire change in culture. Moving to Nashville means doing things the Nashville way, and for Jarosz that involved opening up her usually-solitary songwriting style to a panel of co-writers. The bylines on these songs include Natalie Hemby and Jon Randall— Music City stalwarts who have worked with country stars like Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves— and their keen sense of craft keeps these songs sleek and direct. Opener “Jealous Moon” has a chorus that could’ve earned radio play back during the benevolent reign of of Faith Hill and Shania Twain— and a plucky solo performed on the octave mandolin, Jarosz’ signature instrument.
The other boon collaborator is producer Daniel Tashian, best-known for the psychedelic dimension he brought to Musgraves’ Golden Hour. His work here is similarly soft and supple, though for Jarosz he trades acid-drop trippiness for a more genial sense of warmth and allure. “When the Lights Go Out” has rich harmonies and a soft-rock groove that wouldn’t sound out of place on a lost classic by Fleetwood Mac or Boz Scaggs. Nearly every song is bathed in the rueful ambiance of the steel guitar.
The tune that really would have burned up the honky tonks circa 1990 is “Runaway Train.” With its locomotive momentum and singalong chorus, it’s Jarosz at her most propulsive and pop-savvy. It doesn’t hurt that the song shares a name with a cut from Rosanne Cash’s seminal King’s Record Shop, another important touchstone for Polaroid Lovers.
Other nods to Nashville tradition are more coy. The album-closing “Mezcal and Lime” gestures toward county music’s long-running fascination with Mexican beaches and south-of-the-border liquors. (Sample lyric: “Put a flower in my hair, I’ll be dressed in red/ And we’ll go down to the barrio together.”) As breezy as a nighttime stroll along the shore, it sounds like it could be a musical souvenir from a Cozumel honeymoon— or else a fond tribute to the late Jimmy Buffett.
The sound of Polaroid Lovers suggests the courageous embrace of a new place, an openness to fresh experience. Undoubtedly, Jarosz is inspired by being in a new town but also by being in a new marriage. Yet there is also a sense of wistfulness, an acknowledgement of things lost, which shows up in some of the more introspective numbers. A finger-picked heartbreaker called “Columbus & 89th” bids teary goodbye to Jarosz’ former town and former life: “So give my regards to Broadway/ And tell her that I’m in a good place.”
Autobiography is lightly grafted onto these songs, evidence that Jarosz’ expanded horizons aren’t just an aesthetic choice but an extension of her personal journey. That sense of the personal lends the album gravity and grace even when the tag-team songwriting tends toward the generic, as it does on “Don’t Break Down On Me”— a fairly vanilla lyric made affecting by Jarosz’ passionate singing.
Other songs borrow granular details from Jarosz’ real life, to potent effect. The jazzy shuffle “Days Can Turn Around” takes refuge in maternal wisdom, looking to the past as a lingering source of comfort and direction. Best of all is “Good at What I Do,” where the singer juxtaposes personal insecurity with heartfelt advocacy for her lover: “But I can’t talk about myself the way I talk about you/ ‘Cause I don’t really know if I’m good at what I do.”
Polaroid Lovers finds its power in moments like this one, where the singer proves herself to be both brave and humble in the face of new journeys and unexpected adventures. She is unequivocally good at what she does, and these songs demonstrate it over and over again.
My rating: 7.5 out of 10