Connecticut singer-songwriter Kate Callahan has dropped her third full length CD, Triumph. As on her previous recordings, this former Connecticut State Troubador maintains a quiet but powerful presence. She infuses her songs with feeling and personality without seeming to try. Natural as life, gentle as a butterfly, Callahan lets her voice and the singer-songwriter it represents speak volumes about the human heart.
“Wildfire” opens the disc with her neatly mannered vocal, a vocal which suddenly expands with lovely sustains. Her switch from lyrical rendering to pauses and rests is a fine instrument in and of itself. Beneath her voice is a light piano tinkling whose notes hit a bit harder than her voice and the contrast highlights each well.
Callahan’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” moves with a subtle grace. Ripples of acoustic guitar and a tender pedal steel beneath Callahan’s silky, quite tone create a lush, rustic pillow for her vocal to land in. Her voice carries well along the lilting and twisty melody line, caressing those timeless words like a child petting a kitten.
“Sing” has a bounce in its step as Callahan finds just the right places to land her sweet vocal notes. Perfectly filling in the spaces between her piano climb, she launches out with assertive beauty, pushing along with a joyful melody. Backing vocalist Kristen Graves adds another layer of texture on the chorus, and the listener is easily pulled into the sway of their combined vocal allure.
“Love Rebels” has more of a pop singer-songwriter feel. Its snappy piano work and the vocal harmonies above it intertwine with catchy finesse. The piano notes march forward and the voice sings of revolution. When that voice holds a note for several seconds or combines with a backing vocalist on a harmony line, something magic happens. Callahan’ song widens into a grander spectacle of positive vibes and warm tender grace.
Callahan’s voice pushes it way forward with a self propelled momentum on “Look For The Good.” She reaches even deeper into the listener’s tender spot with her optimistic view of life. Her beauteous voice, with every shifting nuance, makes one feel her sense of hope as she wrings truth out of her observations and wraps them up in a tight lyrical unison.
“Connecticut Roads” is ushered in by ripples of acoustic guitar notes. Over that, Callahan’s urgent hush vocal moves with a thickness, an appealing layer of voice that makes one feel what she is singing about. The way her smooth, flowing voice contrasts with the flintier guitar notes highlights the beauty in each. Callahan floats about this like a kite, her voice illuminating her point with breezy aplomb while loveliness plays beneath her.
“Love Rings Out” sounds its yearning with fiddle, piano, and acoustic guitar weaving a platform for Callahan to sing over. Callahan makes her voice climb in musical strength as her lyrical vision gathers steam as it moves forward. A gentleness with her vocal push and lyrical unfurling continues to make the song feel wider, more encompassing. With a few well placed vocal sustains, Callahan has her listen to every word she sings and every pause she takes.
On “Rowboat,” Callahan’s sweet, rangy voice contrasts well with a considerately picked banjo line by her producer, Eric Lichter. Callahan’s vocal sustains and vocal inflections give this song a sense of playfulness and bounce. When she wraps around her voice around some twisty lyrics near the end it’s candy for the ears.
“Good Friends” drops in like a good friend when you least expect him or her. Callahan expresses her joy with a tastefully self-restrained vocal approach, letting out just enough voice, in considerate measures, making the listener appreciate her like good wine, savored in small tastes at a time.
“Fountain” pours forth with vocal joy, a running brook of voice that travels smoothness, a gentleness, and a steady purpose. Callahan’s light vocal approach is buttressed by a heaviness of emotion. She sings of positive things, making her lyrics shine brightly, letting her words do the talking by staying out of their way with a breezy, unobtrusive manner.
Callahan closes out her disc with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” a version of multi layered voices conjuring a gospel spirituality. She carries her way through the main vocal melody line with the highest, purest voice on her entire album. She makes you feel the emotive uplift of this ballad with a voice that never stops reaching, pushing for a higher level of expression. Her take on Cohen’s piano line nails the feeling of the original version while being somehow brighter.
Callahan has come a long way since her early releases. She sews lyrical messages with sublimely beautiful vocal and melodic expressions. There is nothing like a singer-songwriter who can stitch together the things that go on in the human heart and one of the prettiest voices and some of the loveliest notes around. It certainly didn’t hurt to record her album at Haddam, Connecticut’s Dirt Floor Studio, with Eric Lichter and Steve Wytas turning the knobs. Those studio guys get a clear, pure take on the voices and acoustic instruments on every track.
