Canada-born Lindi Ortega, who has lived in Nashville since her 2013 album Tin Star, has a tremulous vibrato that bears comparison with country forebears Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. She gives every syllable meaning and emotional heft. Faded Gloryville is steeped in mid-20th century southern Americana, thanks in part to John Paul White, formerly of the Civil Wars, and the Alabama Shakes’ keyboard player Ben Tanner, who take a share in writing (the heartbreaker Someday Soon is a standout track) and production. There’s a Muscle Shoals groove on a soulful cover of the Bee Gees’ 1967 To Love Somebody and an Elvis-at-Sun-studios rockabilly feel to Run Amuck and Run-Down Neighborhood. A noirish gloom hangs over the swoonsome Half Moon and the title track, a Tom Waitsish paean to the downtrodden and unfortunate in a place where “nobody wears a crown”. Even on the chugging boogie of When You Ain’t Home there are “shadows overhead”.
