Music Review #2- Long Time Coming by Sierra Ferrell
My personal album of the year.
In my “5 most listened songs of the year” article, a song from this album made an appearance. I knew when that happened, that I wanted my next music review to be of this album.
I haven’t really thought much on what my record of the year is, but this is the first thing that pops into my head when I do start giving it some thought.
This album’s first singles were on a weird release schedule, but it made them no less spectacular. “Why’d Ya Do It” and “Jeremiah” released together, a little under a year before the album came out. Starting around June of 2021 though, the releases became more regular; starting with “The Sea”, an old song that had been on Ferrell’s YouTube channel for a while, but was re-recorded for the album. After that, came my favorite single, “In Dreams” which was my 2nd most listened song of the year. Then finally, “Bells Of Every Chapel” featuring some slight backing vocals, and guitar picking from Billy Strings.
The full album released on August 20th 2021; featuring 12 tracks of pure genre bending magic. Every time I re-listen to this album I fall in love with a new song that has grown on me since my last listen.
There are hints of a sound I can only describe as being reminiscent of old French music, in “The Sea” and “Why’d Ya Do It.”
While “At The End of The Rainbow” is something you’d hear on the streets of New Orleans in the 50s. If you added enough grain to that song and told someone it was recorded in that era they’d never know the difference, unless they somehow knew the word “yucky” wasn’t really used until the 60s of course.
Then there’s the Tex-Mex tune called “Far Away Across The Sea” which prominently features a mariachi-like composition with a steel guitar tossed in there.
“In Dreams”, as David Acaster pointed out in my other article; has a beautiful oriental-inspired riff that opens the song and runs throughout. To me, everything else gives me a very western feel.
“Made Like That” proves that Sierra Ferrell is not limited to just her vintage sound. This is just a gorgeous, sincere, guitar-led ballad. I believe this song was necessary to include, as it shows the true range of Ferrell and proves she is capable of making a more modern country arrangement work beautifully with her voice.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the closing track; “Whispering Waltz” sounds very Irish-inspired to me. Almost like a Celtic Woman song with a slight country tinge to it. I love Irish music, so this song is one of my favorites.
Everything else on the album has a very heavy Appalachian feel. Specifically, and fittingly, “West Virginia Waltz”, really encapsulates that feel the most, even though the end gets a bit busy. I don’t know for sure, but I believe it is inspired by one of my favorite songs of all time, Patti Page’s “Tennessee Waltz.” They sound very similar to me.
I love this whole album, Ferrell’s voice is just so consistently dreamy and beautiful for the whole duration.
Gary Paczosa and Stu Hibberd did a phenomenal job with the production. Everything is clear, and gets it’s chance to shine in each and every song. Sierra’s voice is never drowned out by anything either which is a common problem I’ve found with lots of modern country production.
The lyrics are very good as well, nothing insanely over the top, but they all work extremely well with their respective backing tracks.
This was a tough one to rate for me, so I rated each song individually, calculated the average and came up with my score.
That score is: 8.5/10
I was happy with that being the result, as it was my original thought before I even did the whole calculation thing.
For anyone interested, the lowest score I gave a song was “Far Away Across The Sea” with a 6, and my top song was “In Dreams” with a perfect 10, followed closely by “Made Like That” with a 9.5.
Hope you enjoyed my second review! I still don’t really love my structure of these album reviews, but I think it works well enough for now. I definitely recommend giving this album a listen! If you do, tell me what you thought of it in the comments!
And remember; new reviews are every Tuesday!
Thanks for reading!
