In a better world, Sara Lucas would have an orchestra behind her-- maybe the tastefully mordant strings you'd hear on a 1960s murder ballad, say, or a Nick Drake album-- to enrich the cracks in her complex voice. Or she'd front a ferocious rock band, exercising those mighty lungs in front of stacks of amps. But on Callers' Fortune, she has just one steady partner. And while guitarist Ryan Seaton provides varied and distinct atmospheres for each song, the backdrops remain spare: room sound colors the mood, and Lucas moans like she has nothing left to sing to.
Fortune is barebones, opening with a quick haunter ("Valerie"), followed by a brittle blues that starts: "I love you/ More than is right." The loose waltz staggers to the tune of Seaton's staccato guitar, and you can almost hear Lucas staring daggers at a telephone that's not ringing. But this is one of the most desultory tracks: while it's mostly a ballads album rooted in folk and blues, Fortune is also eclectic-- a distant cousin of collaborations like Rustin Man or even Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, where two principals capable of anything try to stretch their reach without shaking off a cozy, morose mood. Each song gets a different setting, from the precise and lush classical guitar on tunes like "In Blighted Gold" or the woeful volume pedal on "Debris".
The atmospheres are strong, and the songs are solid. "More Than Right" stands out for its tune and its stumbling tempo, and "Rone" has the makings of a memorable, "Shenandoah"-esque folk song, with its long, languid melody and exquisite pairing of guitars. "Fortune", one of the few songs with a rhythm section, makes a powerful setting for Lucas' yearning wails. Other tracks are incidental or merely lovely: their eclecticism keeps Fortune from finding a flow, and "The Upper Lands" sticks out as the lone smolder on the album.
I waited until the end to mention that Lucas and Seaton hail from New Orleans. They met at a café there, and Lucas has sung and taught around the city. Around the time of Katrina, they moved to Rhode Island, where they recorded Fortune, and then landed in Brooklyn. In songs like "Debris"-- an exquisite ballad of almost on-the-nose despair-- it's easy to read a connection to Katrina. But this isn't music about one tragedy or one tragic life: it absorbs those particulars to reach and heal a bigger hollowness. Upon listening to Fortune in the car on one of those days last month when the global economy looked like it was going to collapse, I actually had to shut it off because it got to be too much. And of course, that's meant as high praise.
