Critic's evaluation
Few artists exude an unquenchable thirst for work, for the desire to produce. On that team is Linda Sussman, a New York singer who has released four albums in six years. And now, at the dawn of 2024, she is presenting new material. Entitled Win Or Lose, it marks the fifth studio album released by the singer since 2018.
There is an atmosphere of suspense and tension. Under a twilight sky in yet another dawn that bathes the arid desert landscape, the dust impregnated on the ground by the night's serenity begins to evaporate as the sun becomes more present and life begins to happen. This imagery-sensory scenario is easily brought to life through a fat, high-pitched riff that, pronounced through Mike Nugent's guitar, inserts a generous dose of that blues in its most traditional form. It's not hard for the listener to feel like they're walking freely through the streets of a New Orleans of the early 60s. Then a high, sweet and velvety voice appears, completing the minimalist spectrum of the song. It's Linda Sussman delivering her waltzing and delicately sensual singing through title track title track, a product that, divided between the sweet base of the acoustic guitar and the softened overdrive of the electric guitar, talks superficially about overcoming. After all, its dense narrative is based on the struggle to keep dreams and desires alive within a heart burning with desire. It captures the moment when the individual is strengthened enough to accept the past and look to the future. It is sadness transformed into determination and hope for better days.
The sun is rising in the distance. Little by little, the darkness of the night takes on its first shades of the twilight clarity of an autumn dawn. The serene still dominates the grass, but life is already beginning to happen with the birds singing their first songs, the tinkling of the bells of the cows walking slowly across the pasture. The countryside has taken on its natural sound. Meanwhile, the freshness of the morning infects those touched by the simple aroma of freshly-brewed coffee in the kitchen. What the delicate, sweet strumming of Linda's guitar exalts is the beauty of the pure. The brilliance of the simple. Sweet, soft and gentle, the melody of I Wanna Fly is where the lyrical character assumes that she is so captured by the preoccupation with small things that she forgets to enjoy the moment, to savor what routine sometimes makes go unnoticed. This is how I Wanna Fly emerges as a name for Linda's metaphor between the flight to Spain and the sudden conquest of fullness, of torpor, of temporary detachment from the exhaustions of everyday life.
With its beginnings marked by experimentation with fine-tuned vocal overlays, the harmony takes on a new context. More floral, but at the same time, with a kind of narrative bordering on the Celtic. Offering the listener something different, a tension, a stormy sky calmly swallowing up the soft light of dusk and embracing the arid scenery, Let Common Sense Prevail is a product that, in addition to this imagery, makes the listener, through Linda's vocal interpretation, construct the image of an individual kneeling in front of mystical figures and chanting prayers. With this sensitive contextual breadth, Let Common Sense Prevail has a lyrical plot aimed at rebuilding a sense of civility. Not just restricting itself to altruism, the song brings a kind of incentive for the listener to free themselves from the complex of social individualism perpetrated today and reassume a more communal character. Let Common Sense Prevail is a prayer for kindness to resurface in people's souls and combat the manipulation exerted by evil on those who are emotionally fragile and easily influenced.
A candle is burning under the headboard. In the dim light, an individual is kneeling with his hands in a prayerful pose on the mattress. His expression is serious. His eyes, although closed, are unable to hold back the tears that flow from his eyeballs. His lips move, but without letting out a sound. It's like a silent speech. A prayer imbued with a sincere, even desperate desire for an end to historically institutionalized hatred. My Heart Is Sinking is where the altruistic desire for social development tangents with drama in the guise of a rippling, tearfully dramatic cello inserted by Gabrielle Schavran.
Serene, velvety and cozy. The song manages to promote a sensitive and contagious harmony in its aesthetic simplicity. Built on a sweet folk base, the track, from the lyrical cadence assumed by Linda, manages to create a slight aesthetic familiarity with the interpretative-lyrical spectrum of names like Amy Winehouse and Corinne Bailey Rae, which ends up instilling hints of soul and even R&B in its melodic recipe. In Don't Let It Rain, Kevin Kelly's bass comes across as fat in its static and strident groove, but in a curious way that is capable of imitating, in an unreasonable way, the waves produced by brass horns such as trumpet and trombone. Even so, it is with great delicacy that Don't Let It Rain sounds like the story of a mother trying to hide her suffering when, apparently, her son returns from war. On the other hand, the song can also take the form of a dialog about the maturity of the individual and the transformation of the way he sees life, how he thinks. Don't Let It Rain is nostalgia fused with maturity and the denial of pain.
Contagious joy has arrived. With a swinging guitar riff and a taste of the sertão, folk and blues dance together like two soul mates. Each with a large mug of beer in their hands toasting their harmony. Radio-friendly, but far from catchy, This Bluesy Thing We Do is accompanied by the backing vocals of Linda herself, while the melody matures into a perfect example of the backwoods sound of the United States of the 60s. Like its own melody, This Bluesy Thing We Do also has a sensual essence in its lyricism that exudes ardently through the words spoken by Linda. After all, the song speaks of attraction, of blues dancing, of body-to-body movement. Seduction. Of desire.
Sweet, fresh, attractive. Contagious. The melody that exudes from the introduction is of a simplicity filled with a harmony in which the bass plays a big part. Its contribution, by the way, is the delivery of a bulky and delicate body that sounds almost like the sound of a dawn after a stormy night. Delicate and aromatically floral, Lights Of Change is folky blues working as a soundtrack to the strength of hope. For the courage to see tomorrow as the dawn of change. A song that simply shows that love still lives.
A great surprise greets the listener, bowing his head and taking off his hat in a pose of reverence. Bringing great satisfaction, the melody is now imbued with a more fluid rhythmic movement, but at the same time, a firmer one. This is because Shawn Murray has introduced drums into the rhythmic context of the song. Although it comes in soft and light, the new instrument ends up giving the melody more body and more rhythm. With its attractive sound context, A Power You'll Never Know is graced by a mixture of sweetness coming from the guitar and a full-bodied bass overflowing from the melodic base. Meanwhile, in the lyrical sphere, the song surprises once again by bringing a plot steeped in feminist bases, of female empowerment in a narrative context still dominated by structural sexism. Independence. Freedom. Posture. Opinion. This is the power that you will never understand because of your small-mindedness. A message that, even with great movements to strengthen the figure of women spreading today, is important to break with the machismo and sexism that are still present at the heart of social behavior.
He speaks of hope. Of strength. Of empowerment. Win Or Lose is an album that, imbued with a floral freshness and softly countryness, presents Linda Sussman representing, albeit delicately, all souls in need of attention, compassion and affection.
To paraphrase the saying that brutes also love, the delicate also have strength. This is one of the album's main messages. After all, although contagious in its sensual and bucolic subtlety, it brings the power of contagion, of posture, of body movement, of freedom, of expectation to every melodic corner drawn between its eight chapters.
Even so, in Win Or Lose Linda Sussman didn't just bet on delicacy as a way of exuding grandeur. She immersed herself in the certainty that, with aesthetic minimalism, the proposed messages would be achieved. With great success, the messages of each track are easily understood individually by the listener, who is hooked by the fertile marriage of folk and blues enshrined in the album.
What's more, you can't forget that the album is an extremely extrasensory product. After all, each song makes the listener visualize, in front of their closed eyes, the most varied landscapes bathed in different smells, textures and lighting. It's as if the imagistic dramaturgy also merged with the music.
To make all this happen, you need more than competent musicians and a strong set list. You need someone who makes sure that the sound created really exudes every emotion proposed in a well-balanced and mature way. As well as being in the creative field, Kelly was also in charge of mixing. With him, each instrument can be tasted both individually and collectively and both blues and folk are crystal clear in the equalization offered on Win Or Lose.
Completing the technical scope of the album is the cover artwork. Signed by Linda and Emily-Sue Sloane, it features the singer holding her guitar in a black and white hue. It's like the mourning of the past being swept away by the melodies of change. The music breaks down time barriers and also manages to lift the energy of the spirits most in need of encouragement.
Released on 02/16/2024 in an independent way, Win Or Lose is where delicacy shows its strength. Where the listener finds courage, hope, empowerment and warmth. An album that is aesthetically minimalist, but whose touching harmonies show that, with the simple, it is already possible to souls in need of self-confidence, representation and affection.
