On her sixth album in 15 years, Toronto native Lindi Ortega sounds like she’s been through the industry wringer. After laboring for years as a country outlier in a city better known for indie rock, she self-released two albums and a handful of EPs in the 2000s, weathered one ill-fated major-label signing, then toured as a back-up singer for Brandon Flowers. At the beginning of this decade, she signed with Last Gang Records, releasing two well-reviewed albums that introduced her studiously forlorn vocals and twang-goth sound to a slowly growing audience. And yet, on her latest album, she sounds like she knows the best part is behind and now she’s living in a lonely place called Faded Gloryville.
Ironically, Faded Gloryville might be Ortega's biggest record yet, one that feels well timed amid a boom of semi-traditionalist female country singer-songwriters. She's never quite as witty as Kacey Musgraves or as bold as Nikki Lane, and she doesn't have the ability to immediately shatter your heart the way Ashley Monroe can. Instead, she has a shrewd, quiet self-awareness: "I ain't the girl you're looking for... I ain't the girl for you," she sings sweetly on "I Ain't the Girl". Even though the song is sung to a clean-cut, buttoned up would-be suitor, you get the sense that she might be speaking directly to you, the listener, and wondering why the hell you're even bothering with her.
That's not low self-esteem or fake humility. Instead, one suspects that it has more to do with always being on the edges of the country industry. Ortega is a Canadian with Irish-Mexican blood and a sartorial style that's more Stevie Nicks than Loretta Lynn. Rather than small towns, she sings about big cities, especially on the standout "Run-Down Neighborhood", which finds a sturdy friendship taking shape in the sort of neighborhood where people drive through without stopping at red lights. "Hey, you can have some of my weed if I can smoke your cigarette/ I might be running low, but I ain't out just yet," she sings brightly.
Most of the time Ortega sounds spry, even excitable, singing with a knowing wink underscoring the fatalism of the songs. Even the grim details of a hard-luck life can't keep her down. "Run Amuck" begins as a typical lament about an unfaithful guy, but the second verse reveals that her man is chasing something besides skirts: "Uppers and downers, coffee and cocaine," she sings, then adds, "Egg in a frying pan, this is your brain." In just a few words and a clever rhyme, Ortega stages an intervention and nods at the hokey inadequacy of interventions.
There's more than a little rage driving that song, just as there's more than a little sadness nipping at the edges of "Ain't the Girl". Even if this isn't her most cohesive or inventive album (that would be 2012's Cigarettes & Truckstops), these songs highlight her innate ability to peel back the layers of country convention and find weird new emotions underneath. Ultimately, she makes Faded Gloryville sound not so much like a place of diminished opportunity, but endless possibility.
