It’s the kind of unexpected album, which comes at the right time by shaking us up a bit and energizing us a lot. Acadian singer-songwriter Julie Doiron hadn’t done a solo album for nine years, and frankly, in each of the 13 country-rock songs you feel (and feel) a visceral urgency to sing, to play. the guitar, to tell stories – even if most of them are disappointed love stories.
Recorded in a few days with his lover, Dany Placard, on bass and the brothers Daniel Romano (guitars, keyboards, percussion) and Ian Romano (drums), I Thought of You is both intimate and spacious. Punctuated with small touches of rock and distortion, it exudes above all freedom and even a certain lightness, a carefree attitude despite the themes that are not necessarily funny – no heaviness here, ever, only a vital breath that carries us to the end.
In fact, at 49, after a 30-year career – she debuted with duo Eric’s Trip, premier band Canadian to have signed with the Sub Pop label in the early 1990s -, many solo albums and explorations of all kinds, Julie Doiron has nothing to prove for a long time. And that too, we feel it very strongly by listening to his soft voice, but not honey, which sometimes crumbles, completely embodied, or by appreciating the little bits that stick out because nothing is perfect in life.
Result: the trip that Julie Doiron offers us is vibrant and soothing to the soul, and it is certainly the little extra we needed to help us end the year.
Country-folk
I Thought of You
Julie doiron
You’ve Changed Records