Here With Me by Holly Williams

2009, Mercury Nashville, 11 tracks at 36 min.

NOTE: Just trying out a new image format for reviews. If it's fuggs, I apologize.

The litmus test for country music goes something like this: in scenario one, my dad will say the music is okay, while I will rave it about until kingdom come. In scenario two, I will think the music is simply ‘okay’, while my dad will sing its praises. In scenario 3, my dad will think the CD in question is the end-all-be-all of country achievement, while I will be left saying, “Christ, you like this?”

You see, this litmus is usually flawless. Plug-in Lucinda Williams for scenario one, Carrie Underwood for scenario two, and Rascal Flatts for scenario three. But take the new Holly Williams album, Here With Me, and the formula falls apart. I like it. My dad likes it. And as ‘generational conflict’ (the fave buzzword of an old English teacher who described every fucking story in the textbook as such) dictates, we just should not agree on what constitutes ‘good’ country music.

So what makes Here With Me a pick for both geezers and kidsters? Being the granddaughter of Hank Williams connects Ms. Williams to the cryin’ and fightin’ fiddles of tradition—indeed, a lineage heavily touted by her half-brother Hank Williams III. Yet this album is not in the neotraditional vein for which her brother is infamous, but rather a fine mixture of altcountry, modern country-pop, and even a touch of singer-songwriter tendencies.

I say singer-songwriter because there are moments while singing her own lyrics that Williams’ voice emotes perfectly the message of the text. On “Mama”, a song praising her mother for not being vindictive towards her father, she sings “I’ve seen mothers fill their childrens’s/hearts with hate”, and her delivery seems not only spirited and revelatory but devoid of any sappiness.

Williams, however, is no Iris Dement (see the guilty-sounding “Without Jesus Here With Me”), and she takes a cautious-yet-ultimately-wanting view of relationships in “A Love I Think Will Last”. Don’t mistake Williams for a Twainian-pop-idealist, though. The highlight of the album, “Three Days In Bed”, is a tale of darkened, Franco-flavored quasi-love, and on lines such as “I don’t smoke but I do on occasions like these”, one hears not only the subtle power of Williams’ voice and lyricism but also the melancholia of her guitarmanship (that’s a word, right?). The superb “Let Her Go”, meanwhile, recalls a Lucinda Williams vibe with its roving, girl-with-a-guitar melody. On the other hand, radio-ready tracks such as “He’s Making a Fool Out of You” and “Gone With The Morning Sun” depart from the pleasantly non-mainstream sound present for much of the album for a fuller, more bodied aesthetic.

Here With Me isn’t exactly a healing of the ‘rift’ between modern country and the more drawling gloom of its ancestor, and one wonders how long Williams will be able to maintain the originality of her heartfelt, all-too-human shtick. For now, though, Williams should be content with her successes—and Here With Me, a surprisingly articulate sophomore effort, is certainly one of them.

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Listen to "Three Days In Bed"