Box Of Troubles was the last album Danielle Miraglia released. Those who missed it at the time of its release missed out on ten especially good tracks drenched in tasty roots idioms. Aside from Miraglia’s winsome, down to earth, natural voice, and flinty guitar picking, she brings on board fiddlers, pedal steel players, accordionists, and other roots musicians to flesh out her vision of American life and Americana music.
Miraglia opens with “Fold My Hand,” an acoustic guitar driven number that lures one in with its persistent picking style and Steve Latt fiddling a pretty melody in the backdrop, a whistling sensation that contrasts well with Miraglia’ huskier alto. It’s a treat for the ears when the listener hears that fiddle giving off its tender mercy melody when following a Miraglia tale of hard life, tragedy, and fate.
“Loud Talkers” comes at the listener with a bit of attitude. Miraglia works her stomp box, providing a serious forward momentum. Her pushy guitar line, augmented by tastefully restrained electric guitar, whistling pedal steel notes, and a fiddle that flirts with all, creates the colorful backdrop to her tale of bar patrons who like to make their presence known. Miraglia, in her chorus, cleverly and succinctly captures the ambiguous barfly emotion: “Look at me/Don’t look at me/Look at me/Don’t look at me.”
Miraglia takes a turn for the spiritual on “Choir,” an ironic take on the “preaching to the choir” phrase. The songwriter reminds that songwriters are only truly heard by the listeners who are already following their groovy words of wisdom about peace, harmony, and understanding. Meanwhile, the world continues to go to hell in a hand basket. Miraglia puts power in her words by belting them out with a honky tonk rasp. Reaching a tremendous arc in her vocal line then descending with natural loftiness, she’s as real as your next door neighbor and as serious as the train that’s about to run you down. Paul Ahlstrand’s seductive saxophone line is another allure here, as is Jen Kearney’s sexy choir girl backing vocal.
“Home” eases its way into the listener’s consciousness with its whispery vocals, acoustic slide, and Laurence Scudder’s playful viola. Miraglia lets this one work it gentle presence into existence with persistent self-restraint. By the time she’s done, she’s made you think long and hard about the concept of a home. Her easeful vocal approach belies the seriousness she finds in the ghosts that roam around a home. Her slide notes echo with the emotion of her words, making you feel the ghosts from the home’s past and the lives that can no longer live there.
Miraglia whips up an Americana roots fest on “See The Light.” To great effect she employs Trevor Smith’s banjo, Greg Klyma’s mandolin, and Jesse Pagano’s washboard. The listener can imagine an old time and place in American history as those roots instruments have their way with the listener’s imagination. Each earthy instrument here deserves its own separate review for the brittle but flavorful notes they offer. Harmonica and a lush vocal complete the sonic landscape. Miraglia finesses her hard hitting lyrics with breathy, whispery lines that grow suddenly husky on the chorus, making the listener feel lifted into her light of knowledge.
It’s uncanny how this singer-songwriter can stir the listener’s emotions with even her gentlest approaches. Miraglia spreads her lush vocal wide on “Another Round.” Sparse accompaniment lets the listener hear what she can do with that voice of hers, her purity and assertiveness shining like a full moon on a clear night. Contrasting her soft, wide voice with a sharper viola line, Miraglia rises high in the mix and becomes an aural beacon, a light in the dark and a force that doesn’t need to work hard to show its force.
Borrowing the traditional “Stagger Lee” from whomever used it last, Miraglia works up a thicket of acoustic guitar gruel and menacing background low end. Her understated assertiveness expresses the caution and urgency of getting in a jam with “cruel Stagger Lee.” The listener can feel the danger in the nervous twang arcing over everything else and in the worried viola line. There’s a flavor of old west drama in the wide sweeps of instrumentation here, like the big wide open territory just narrowed when “cruel Stagger Lee” came into town.
Miraglia is back on safer ground on “Drive.” Actually, there is no safety in Miraglia’s poetic lyrical vision of American life. Like life, anything can happen to a person in Miraglia’s songs. Yet, here, someone is let off the hook, and the song’s tender mercy comes across well in this singer-songwriter’s arrangement. A pedal steel melody works its magic in the backdrop of this song as the singer-songwriter offers to take care of her lover. She caresses her words with a tender application of her lush vocal, making her listener feel her compassion for this man.
“Glimmer Of Gold” finds Miraglia contemplating hope within the box of troubles that is life. As Jake Bush’s old world accordion melody wafts in the background, Miraglia asserts herself in carefully measured verses, making it feel like her song is climbing up a challenging mountain, peddling up a road into life’s trials and tribulations. She infuses her vocal line with enough brightness and warmth that her worlds actually feel encouraging and supportive.
Miraglia closes out her album with “Good Times,” a brief recollection of a happy event that she and her fellows cannot recollect. It’s assertive, simplistic acoustic guitar picking style carry the brief ditty along at a sprightly pace. Empty bottles and a lack of memory seems humorous at first yet, with repetition we get a feeling of sorrow of not being able to remember something fun shared with good friends.
As songwriter and arranger, Miraglia provides numerous musical flourishes to please the ear on Box Of Troubles. As lyricist she offers many keen insights into the human condition. We might not always like how we see ourselves when an artist like Miraglia holds a mirror up to society. But we do get an honest reflection of the realities we are often stuck with in modern life.
