Jess Williamson has been one of my favourite artists for a long time now, with her gorgeous last album ‘Time Ain’t Accidental’ my favourite of 2023 and the Plains album collaboration with Waxahtachee high on my 2022 rankings. This new album ‘A Mile South of Heaven’ has her working with producer Shooter Jennings and moving more towards an Americana sound, using a full band and pedal steel.
Opener ‘Goodbye to All That’ is a gorgeous, wistful, open hearted song inspired by Joan Didion. It’s about letting go, finding love, finding God, finding a way to escape. Jess lives between two places, Marfa in Texas and California and this song brings that sense of push and pull of her life into a widescreen musical vista.
Title track ‘A Mile South of Heaven’ is another expansive view of her life and love, concluding ‘I’m not a perfect woman / But this time I’m trying.’ Her voice sounds as good on here as anything she’s ever sung.
Another stand out song is ‘Texas Time’ which describes twirling around the dance floor, an ode to the joy of love. ‘Hum of the City’ also prefers the escape of the dance floor to the call of the woods.
Yet despite being in love, the album has an undercurrent of longing and sadness. ‘Legends Die’ offers us an insight into the perilous search for fame, asking her love to bring her flowers ‘when I lose my mind’. On ‘Someone Else’s Horses’ she even references that old Neil Young song about surviving rock and roll, concluding ‘my my hey hey / loneliness is here to stay.’
Scratch beneath the surface and many of these songs appear to be about feeling betrayed and the struggle of living in someone else’s orbit. Jess has denied a rumoured rift between herself and Katie Crutchfield, and I want to believe her, but some of these songs certainly seem to hint in that direction.
On ‘High Heels and Blue Jeans’ the lines ‘scared of you in the back of the bus / nothing to lose, no one to trust’ seem to tell a story of a doomed tour. The song is about the struggle to just get on with the show and give everyone in the audience a good time.
‘Tracking the Tropics’ also feels so loaded to me as it dives further into the unease she felt working with someone. ‘Why pick me just to pick me apart?’ She sings and then uses the metaphor of ‘Another storm with a woman’s name / She’s catastrophic’ to highlight the destructive effect the person had on her.
Then the sucker punch for me is ‘Battle Scar’ where she explores the aftermath of being hurt and belittled by someone. There’s moments of hard won wisdom here, like ‘When someone shows you who they are / believe them.’ Whoever these songs are about you, just hope she’s found some closure and can put this difficult period behind her.
The album finishes with ‘The Gem and Mineral Show’ about a Hollywood party she attended where she mingled with famous people like Taylor Swift. Her conclusion of these experiences, is ‘I am a tourist here / I come and I go’. Being an outsider, always shifting between places, is freeing and yet seems to be taking its toll all the same.
‘A Mile South of Heaven’ is an always searching album, one that isn’t afraid to look inside herself to question her life, love and relationships. The country music influences in the sound are rich and reflect the melancholic tone of the songs. One for the seekers and the soul searchers.
BUY: https://jesswilliamson.bandcamp.com/album/a-mile-south-of-heaven
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