Liz Longley
"Weightless"
(Sugar Hill (ASTERISK)(ASTERISK)(ASTERISK){)
Liz Longley opens her second album for a national label with "Swing," a declaration of independence in which the singer expresses a desire to test limits: "I just wanna swing ... further than I've ever been, only to come back." It sets the tone for a set that finds the Nashville-based singer navigating often rocky emotional terrain with the depth, unsparing honesty, and grace of a master singer-songwriter. Longley is as good here singing about cutting ties and moving on, as she does on "Weightless," as she is confessing to dependency _ "Be my oxygen," she pleads on the album closer.
The music is just as assured and fully realized, a sturdily melodic pop-based sound that ranges from just piano and voice to almost orchestral rock. It all adds up to an engrossing whole in which Longley consistently engages the listener to _ in a line from "Swing" _ "be here in this moment."
_Nick Cristiano
