Last year, Lindi Ortega told me of her frustration that she was more likely to win fans playing to a punk crowd on a bill with a band such as Social Distortion than she was appearing on the same bill as the hat acts at a mainstream country festival. Perhaps that frustration accounts for her seventh album, on which she makes no attempt to whoop it up, instead presenting a song cycle that’s significantly more western – in the sense of the movies – than country.
Guitars twang, mariachi brass swoops in and out, and Ortega sings a story that – as with most song cycles and concept albums – doesn’t really make a lot of sense unless someone’s explaining it to you. It all adds up to something Ennio Morricone, Lee Hazlewood and Calexico might have dreamt up in an imaginary cantina. Ortega has spoken of her love for Quentin Tarantino, and the notional plotline is Tarantinoesque – someone with darkness in their heart has bad friends, loses someone close, has a seance, makes a deal with the devil – and that’s only the first four songs. There’s more, but it all gets a bit Norse-saga-with-sagebrush. Of course, you don’t need to know (or grasp) the plot to adore the music, to bathe in the tumbling arpeggios of Lovers in Love, to thrill at the tension and darkness of The Comeback Kid. It’s a curio, but a triumphant curio.
