Jessie Baylin - Jersey Girl (2022) [Hi-Res]

Husky but honeyed, Jessie Baylin's voice immediately transports you to a different time. The Nashville by way of New Jersey singer-songwriter channels Merseybeat on charming "Nightflower" and Paisley Underground for jangling "Catch Fire" on her first album. The excellent piano jaunt "That's the Way," meanwhile, could be a long-lost cut from Brill Building-era Gerry Goffin & Carole King. Baylin's style is also completely grown-up, and sexy, as on that song's Motown-esque bridge: "He's got a way/ A kind of sway/ A tidal wave/ And then I break/ And when I wake/ Up in his arms and I am goooooone." She also knows how to get Xanadu spacey—right down to the melting Jeff Lynne-style guitar tones—on the swooning love song "Cloud Nine," and "Slowest Bullet," which absolutely sparkles even as she sings about the pain of slow-burn relationship troubles and how they can hurt more than fiery flare-ups: "You're killing me/ Killing you/ With the slowest bullet." Baylin, the wife of Kings of Leon drummer Nathan Followill, is an underrated musical force, and here, cover to cover, she has finally found her sweet spot. If she chose to completely unleash it, there is the potential of Dusty Springfield power in her voice; but she plays it cool—with the exception of "Time Is a Healer," which she has called the record's "outlier rock song," influenced by Stevie Nicks and neo-psych practitioners Temples. Psychedelic tinged with a driving beat that turns thunderous, the track is about learning not to beat yourself up over perceived shortcomings over time. "If you wait a little while/ The weather will tame this storm brewing in the west," Baylin sings. "Time is a healer/ a truth revealer." "Velvet Touch" lives up to its name sonically: gentle shakers, lush keys and '70s guitar like warm brandy. "Strange Diamonds" is dusky; the piano ballad "Desire" is silky. And "Song for a Young Man" is positively plush, sprawling from a spoken section to sweeping grandeur, à la The Righteous Brothers' "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration." Baylin wraps it all up with a sun-dappled tribute to her youth, "Jersey Girls," that is a little bit Springsteen and a whole lot Sinatra (Nancy): "Made to run on hot concrete" and "Want to feel wind in their hair … How can you blame them?" © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz