Margo Price – Strays (LP Vinyl)
Review
Margo Price has put a bonafide country classic on her listeners’ ears with “Lydia.”
The guitar-and-strings, half-spoken, half-sung lament of the troubled titual character is the centerpiece of Strays. Set in an abortion clinic in a neighborhood swimming in opioids, “Lydia” further blazes and modernizes Loretta Lynn’s trail of “The Pill,” as Price tells the story:
“Then I came home after dancin’ one night/and I wrecked my car and see I have to take the bus now/so you've got a long walk to think about it/a long walk to the station/a long life ahead to live with yourself/so think about it, Lydia.”
The balance of the album - which includes cameos from Mike Campbell, Sharon Van Etten and Lucius - is a departure for Price as she straddles Nashville with one foot planted in Laurel Canyon and the other on the East Coast. She channels Lou Reed on the opening “Been to the Mountain” and mixes up Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen on “Country Road.”
Strays is a circuitous journey, full of exciting detours and the occasional cul-de-sac.
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— Kristopher Weiss, jambands.com
Product Details
Strays arrived in early 2023 as Price's most sonically adventurous step yet, trading the honky-tonk grit of her early Midwest Farmer's Daughter days for something rawer and more psychedelic. The Topanga Canyon setting wasn't incidental; that landscape has a way of loosening things up, and you can hear it in the fuzz and the space Price lets into these songs.
In just three remarkable solo albums Margo Price has cemented herself as a force in American music and a generational talent. On her fourth full-length Strays, recorded in Topanga Canyon and produced by Jonathan Wilson, the singer and songwriter presents a clear-eyed mission statement delivered in blistering rock and roll. Margo Price has something to say, and nothing to prove.
Tracklist
Side A
Side B
Disc 1
UPC: 888072475052
Label: Loma Vista
Release Date: 11.22.24
Format: LP Vinyl