Betty Soo
Album: When We're Gone
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.bettysoo.com

Born of five years combining touring with visiting and helping friends whose lives were falling apart, the songs on the Austin-based Korea-American's latest variously address loss, grief and loneliness, sometimes relieved by moments of fleeting happiness. Backed by such Texan stalwarts as bassist Glenn Fukunaga, guitarist Will Sexton and producer Brian Standefer on cello, as ever, she wraps these in melodic Americana that marries catchy tunes with sharply observed and empathetic lyrics, perfectly embodied in '100 Different Ways of Being Alone', her voice evoking thoughts of both Suzanne Vega and Kelly Willis as she sings about children of dysfunctional families looking to find a place in the world.

The slow, jazz-blues 'Hold Tight' documents a collapsing relationship, matching the imagery to suit a home that has become a battlefield, 'Last Night', with Lloyd Maines on weeping pedal steel, has the narrator having to face the man she loves being with another, while the slow waltzing 'The Things She Left Town With' sketches a portrait of woman from a broken marriage who's fled her past only to find a future that seems even bleaker, "scarred, bruised and tattered like the skin on her arms" and without the rent for her room with a wall hung sink. But if that tugs at the heart, it's nothing compared to the 'Nothing Heals A Broken Heart', a devastating song about grief and loss as a mother talks about being the death of her child as, accompanied by mournful cello, Soo sings "We took your seat out of the car after a couple of weeks. But your room is still unchanged. Yellow and lime jeans still crumpled in the basket, a small tear on the left knee".

Mercifully, not everything here is so sad. Not the strongest track, perhaps, but, conjuring The Bangles, 'Summertime' is a lyrically and musically upbeat snapshot of love ("she's clinging to your back, your neck, your hands. Legs browned beneath the hem of a salt stiff cotton dress now crumpled on the floor, a crimson mess2), the character in 'When We're Gone' imagines someone sorting through her and her husband's belongings after their death and finding "tokens of love in pockets and boxes. A ring you never threw away", while 'Wheels' is a suitably the mid-tempo number about rolling with the punches.

Best of the brighter bunch though is 'Josephine', a Vega-like number backed by cello and upright bass about Joe, a married office worker who, after his 9-5 drudge, transforms into Josephine, a cross-dressing torch singer who finds his heart's true home as "every eye closes when he starts to sing." The album also ends on a warm, optimistic note, Joey Colarusso playing clarinet and flute on the crooning catharsis of 'Lullaby', a parent's goodnight to their child, that, after the blows of the lost and broken elsewhere, leaves us with the sense that life is about love as well as pain.

Mike Davies