Artist: Grace Potter
Release Date: 25th October, 2019
Genre: Blues, Soul, Rock
Record Label: Hollywood Records/ Fantasy Records
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.gracepotter.com
The very talented Vermont born but LA based Grace Potter has had a very eventful few years. After dissolving her long-time band the Nocturnals, she released a more pop solo album ‘Midnight’, in 2015. Shortly after that, she divorced her husband and Nocturnals drummer, Matt Burr, and began a new relationship with ‘Midnight’ producer Eric Valentine. Grace and Eric had their first child in 2018. All of these events serve as the background for the songs on her new album ‘Daylight’.
But by the end of 2017, Grace began to feel the call of the studio and soon started laying down tracks in the Topanga Canyon home she’d recently settled into with her husband, ‘Midnight’ producer Eric Valentine. Unsigned and entirely free of any pressure to appease, Grace slowly carved out the songs that now make up ‘Daylight’: an album that emerges as her most emotionally revealing, musically daring, and exactingly realized body of work to date. “When I finally started writing songs again - I did it for me.”
Grace’s seventh full-length and first release for Fantasy Records, ‘Daylight’ mostly came to life through a series of live-to-tape sessions at Valentine’s Hollywood studio, Barefoot Recording. Along with capturing the undeniable vocal power Grace’s previously shown in sharing the stage with The Rolling Stones, Robert Plant, and Neil Young, the album unfolds with an irresistibly vital sound birthed with the help of guests like Benmont Tench and Lucius. “Having all these incredible musicians playing live in the room with me gave the recording an urgency—like, this matters right now,” Grace recalls.
‘Daylight’ sees Grace moving away from the sound of her former band. Highlights include the stunning ‘Release’ a slow piano ballad driven by a beautiful vocal performance. The bare and personal, reflective and raw lyric mines the very depth of her soul. It's charts a broken relationship and serves as a watershed moment not only for this album but probably for the rest of her career. It feels like the ending of one important chapter and the start of the next chapter begins with the second half of ‘Daylight’.
After the wonderful "Release", Grace continue with a group of songs that directly address her breakup. These have the most honest and open lyrics. They are accompanied by perfect musical compositions that is reminiscent of her earlier Nocturnals work. This is the style that really suits her stunning and powerful voice. The second half of the album also features three more fantastic appearances by Lucius (‘Repossession’, ‘Desire’ and ‘Please’) adding to of my favourites on the album the powerful soul/blues future classic ‘Back To Me’.
Grace Potter has been on the threshold of great things and a massive breakthrough for many years. The release of ‘Daylight’ is definitely an important and giant step on that journey.
A beautiful and high quality album full of raw emotion and heart & soul. Highly recommended.
