At one point on her disappointing 2008 album, Another Country, alt-country songstress Tift Merritt claims, "It isn't very often that I say just what I mean." Much of the reason for that record's mediocrity can be explained by that line, as Merritt's willowy voice and limp folk-pop hooks found themselves floating off entirely into the ether upon being paired with frustratingly vague, moony lyrics choked with overcooked metaphors ("Night is a gypsy;" "I ran like the wildest horse").
Leaning hard on blithe mid-tempo grooves and useless pleasantries, Merritt was in danger of writing herself off wholly into benign irrelevance, a Sheryl Crow with some indie cred. Blessedly, however, her newest album, See You on the Moon, finds Merritt finally figuring out how to say just what she means, taking full advantage of her gift for intimate, fragile songwriting by attaching it to words that speak quietly but directly to real states of love, both in union and in discord. Wonderful opener "Mixtape" is about something as modest as showing love through song selection, and when Merritt breaks out the metaphors it's to charmingly liken herself to a B-side, not a galloping stallion. Meanwhile, the mid-album one-two punch of "Never Talk About It" and "All the Reasons We Don’t Have to Fight" not only ruminate on strained relationships but also mimc their syntax; like estranged couples walking on eggshells afraid to trigger another eruption, the songs leave out the details and stick to language that's neutral on the surface but secretly freighted with emotion.
In general the album is somber and reflective, and it consistently suits Merritt well. Even when her imagination is given freer rein here, it's in the service of sincere meditation rather than glib pronouncement-- Merritt may imagine "my typewriter strapped with diamonds to my chest" on "The Things That Everybody Does", but she also self-deprecatingly concedes, "a mountain's still a mountain…no matter what I’d like it to be."
Musically, less is almost always more in Merritt's universe. The album's two trad rockers, "Six More Days of Rain" and "Live Till You Die", are also its biggest duds, as Merritt continues to evince zero facility for broad-stroke anthemics. "Papercut" may represent an improvement, riding the sort of coolly spacious mid-tempo groove that’s successfully propelled Rosanne Cash and Chrissie Hynde in the past, yet Merritt lacks their commanding vocal presence. Her delicate pipes may consign her to small sketches and close studies, but Merritt's at least proven with See You on the Moon that she has the lyrical goods to deliver intimately pleasurable, deeply felt folk-pop.
