NineBullets.net: I Came From The War

By John Allman for NineBullets.Net

There are some albums that the word timeless truly encapsulates.

In 1992, when I was barely legal and working my first job in northern Alabama, I fell head over heels for a bartender and spent many a night in her upstairs attic apartment, with its French doors and draped tapestries, islands of candles burning, the silky sounds of k.d. lang’s Ingenue filling the tiny space, as she stood in the doorway, a lit Marlboro in her hand, her long legs framed by the candlelight, her hair wet from a shower, looking at me stretched across her bed.

Some music is so good that it helps you take a mental snapshot of a moment, a forever reminder filled with sound, smells and emotion.

Jessi Robertson’s new record, I came from the war, is that kind of album.

Every syllable that escapes Robertson’s lips has that longing, that fire, that raw immediacy that allows you to hear and feel her soul.

As confident as her stunning 2011 disc Small Town Girls, but better yet, this collection of 10 songs, framed within the familiar notes of a love struggling to survive, pulses and pulls, drawing you ever closer to its mark.

Her voice is a gift, an instrument in and of itself, transitioning with ease from plaintive to confessional to aggressive without ever being off-putting. It envelops you like smoke, seeping in.

I want to stand in a dark bar and hear these songs live.

I want that bar to be filled with people experiencing Jessi for the first time, like a group of archaeologists stumbling across a major find, a rare artifact of unknown origin, captivating in its beauty and containing a secret message that every ear should hear.

In an age when bubblegum pop and manufactured stars take center stage, selling millions of records because of a brand, not talent, it’s a crime that someone of Robertson’s talent is not headlining shows and exposing new fans every day to her amazing songs.