Alela Diane - Long Way Down
My first reaction after hearing Alela Diane’s new album, Alela Diane and Wild Divine, was to go back and listen to her previous album, To Be Still. Some important change had taken place over the course of albums, but I couldn’t put my finger on it without looking backwards. A few songs in my suspicions were confirmed: this was a new Alela Diane. To Be Still resonated with listeners because of it’s sweet fragility, the product of a young women still searching for her place in the world. Wild Divine, on the other hand, brims with confidence and purpose, the work of a songwriter completely at ease with herself and her craft. This new found maturity suits Diane very well, most so on “Long Way Down”. Here Diane sings of love gone cold, but with the perspective of someone who has learned and grown from her romantic failures rather than been defeated by them. Supported by surprisingly muscular guitars, played by her father and new husband, she sounds much more like country-rock heroine Gillian Welch than Joanna Newsom, the folksy songstress she has typically been compared to in the past.
