Sarah MacDougall: Grand Canyon | Album Review

If Canadian-Swedish singer-songwriter Sarah MacDougall's last album, 2011's The Greatest Ones Alive, was earthy soul-searching, then this collection is a dramatic switch to a more ambitious soundscape.

Her work is shaped by her anxieties and of those she observes. Some songs follow from her part-time work in a residential home for youth at risk, with issues of identity, rootlessness and forgiveness aired in assumed voices.

Others, such as the title track, are more reflexive, taking stock of a life lived in the shadow of frustration.

These existential themes are not new but her mode of expressing them has upgraded from humble, guitar-based settings to almost-baroque folk-pop, with string sections, moody electronica and voice tracking.

And it works, as on the opening I Want To See The Light. Her voice remains her own but this is an impressive stretch.

[ sarahmacdougall.com ]