Lizzie West would have been the perfect replacement for Natalie Merchant when she left 10,000 Maniacs. Her voice has the same rich, smooth qualities as Merchant's, and the tracks on "Holy Road: Freedom Songs" are of a similar adult-contemporary pop-rock genre.
The album starts with the track "Welcome," which isn't a song at all but an intro more fitting to an electronic album from the likes of Apoptygma Berzerk; the spoken-word piece tells the listeners they've entered the "Center for Social, Philosophical and Spiritual Research." Immediately after this, however, the listener is plunged into feel-good music perfect for speeding down the highway on a sunshine-filled day; the ease with which West moves into "Time to Cry" speaks to her comfort in transcending genres.
Track four, "The Day We Met," moves West from easygoing light rock into a smooth ballad reminiscent of songs like "Seven Years" and "Cowboy Romance" from Merchant's solo debut "Tigerlily." "The Day We Met" is a lovelorn ode to continuing adoration: "Lying here beside me, you sweetly hold my head, you tell me, I love you like I loved you ... the day we met."
"Miss You Baby" takes West back into the territory of Shania Twain, with beats and acoustic guitar that would be at home in the country dive's "No One Needs To Know."
With hints of Joan Osbourne's "Pensacola" (off the same album as that artist's "One of Us"), the lyrics of "Doctor" make it one of the album's edgiest tracks: "No one will understand you. They'll lie like cloak on king, those mean-faced c-m star f-----s, will gladly turn you in."
Like so many albums in this genre, it seems West has placed most of her up-tempo tracks at the opening of her record. As the album progresses, the speed of the tracks begins to slow, and the last three songs are folksy combinations of angst and intensity. When she sings "I still don't know the walk of a holy road," though, West's sincerity comes across as more important than the landscape of her seeming despair. Even during these slower songs, West uses her music to change lyrics that speak of pain into uplifting, contemplative music.
Over and over, the listener cannot help but draw lines between the vocal similarities West bears to Merchant and the way her songwriting bears so much resemblance to the work done by the cadre of girl-power singer-songwriters who emerged in the late 1990s, including Sarah McLachlan and Jewel Kilcher's early work.
Like these singers, West muses on love and loss, her songs toeing the lines of country and folk without ever quite crossing the out of the realm of pop.
