I know you gotta suffer for your art, but damn. Over the Mountain, Across the Valley, and Back to the Stars, indie folk singer Jennifer O'Connor's third album and first for Matador, includes songs inspired by the deaths of her two sisters, which make the stormy break-up that also precipitated the album seem like just another day in the life. That's a lot of gravity for one record; fewer losses have inspired dismally funereal records or bounce-back albums full of forced recovery aphorisms. O'Connor, thankfully, isn't looking to sob or even really to commiserate. The percolating bassline and gently ascending chorus on the opener "Century Estates" signals as much at the earliest opportunity.
These songs sound like the culmination of a deeply personal process of coming to terms rather than four-minute therapy sessions, which means O'Connor can pull off a plainspoken chorus like "Sister I miss you" on "Sister" without sounding maudlin or manipulative. When she sings, "And he calls twice a week/ Just to hear me speak/ And we don't talk about what's gone or who's left without," it takes a minute for the implications to settle in: She's talking not to you, but to her sister, about her father, and she caps the song with the devastatingly simple observation: "There's no way it's ever gonna be okay/ Ever again." O'Connor's forthrightness-- both lyrical and vocal-- makes "Sister" one of the most genuinely affecting pop songs you'll hear all year, capably expressing adult pain without any delusions that pain makes you particularly soulful or special.
To strike this balance between the emotional and the plainspoken, O'Connor has stripped away most of the atmospheric elements that lent her previous albums their moody gravity, and the pared-back aesthetic suits her unpretentious voice and plainspoken lyrics, which generally eschew the poetics of likeminded performers Laura Veirs and Azure Ray. It's as if any artful veneer applied to these songs might up-end their message or dilute their impact. Even the headstrong rock songs like "Bullshit Maze" and "Perfect Match" come across as austere and elemental. In this environment, Britt Daniel's backing vocals on "Dirty City Blues" or the plaintive violin on "Complicated Rhyme" sound like full orchestration.
Not every song here is about death, but every song is about loss. Parts of Over the Mountain were inspired by romantic fallout, and at the core of each track is a stinging absence, either one she is experiencing or one that looms before her. On "Exeter, Rhode Island", the album's most upbeat track, O'Connor longs for a secure life in a small town, but the distraction of pop radio and the barely audible sigh in her voice suggest it's a hollow dream. On the tender "Today", over a lone acoustic guitar, she readies herself to make a romantic leap, but on the abrasive next track, "Bullshit Maze", she castigates herself for a string of bad decisions. And it's clear that the apology that forms "I Was So Wrong" comes way too late. Instead of ending on the down note of "Tonight We Ride", O'Connor at least closes Over the Mountain with the sing-along "I'll Bring You Home", which sounds particularly joyous even if its lyrics describe the same bullshit maze she's been running through all along.
