Ariel Lask - Great Escape

Ariel Lask
Great Escape
Self-​Released; 2011

To be per­fectly hon­est with you, I’ve always pre­ferred the music of female folk and alt-​country artists to that of their numer­ous male coun­ter­parts. Maybe it’s because I pre­fer dusky alto croons to plain­tive tenor coos. Maybe it’s because I’m always glad to see more women involved in the music indus­try. Maybe it’s because I’m a closet chau­vin­ist who’s always been enam­ored with the female form and feels that women as artists can strike an espe­cially pow­er­ful image. What­ever – let’s just say that I want to see more female musi­cians suc­ceed in the music world.

So, I was pleased to receive the debut full-​length from Ariel Lask to review on this site, and it hap­pily struck sev­eral famil­iar chords, and did so with soul. Great Escape calls to mind a healthy batch of great voices – the great tri­umvi­rate of Emmy­lou Har­ris, Lucinda Williams, and Gillian Welch come imme­di­ately to mind – but I was also pleased to hear pop­pier influ­ences like Sheryl Crow, Amy Grant, Col­bie Cail­lat, and Sara Bareilles rear their head every once in awhile. More impor­tantly, the record doesn’t stray very far from com­fort­able, time­worn lyri­cal ideas like deal­ing with loss and pain, explor­ing one’s soul, and stand­ing res­olute in the face of tri­als and tribulations.

Such thoughts only enhance the strong musi­cal com­po­nents at play. First and fore­most is Lask’s voice – it’s a robust alto with some excel­lent smoky qual­i­ties, good range when needed, and the occa­sional off-​kilter slide in tone for emo­tional effect. The back­ing band real­izes this, as no one player seeks to take over the mix, and no one ever attempts to wrest con­trol from the singer. The gui­tars are clean and ever so country-​fied, while the rhythm sec­tion is straight-​out-​of-​Nashville solid, and I always love to hear a good organ player fill out the sound. When the band is capa­ble and con­fi­dent, even the old­est chord pro­gres­sions sound effort­less and interesting.

The record reach a rather tepid point on cuts like “Blue­bird,” “All I Could Do,” and “Stranger” when rather bor­ing radio pop con­cepts over­whelm good pop the­o­ries. Also, while the project as a whole could serve as a rev­er­ent homage to the women who have paved the way for ladies like Lask, Shel­ley Coley, and Raina Rose, it also show­cases an artist who’s still try­ing to find her own voice and per­son­al­ity. The songs are good, and the arrange­ments are pleas­ant and catchy, but they’re also a bit for­mu­laic and in need of some tweak­ing in terms of the formatting.

Yet, as heard on selec­tions like “Dirt’s On Fire,” “Don’t You Know,” and “Mir­rors,” the real strength of Great Escape is that Ariel Lask has learned the lessons of her fore­bears – the power inher­ent in this genre rests in the heart­felt, sin­cere pre­sen­ta­tion of the mate­r­ial. There’s no need for pomp, cir­cum­stance and bom­bast in the worlds of alt-​country and folk-​pop; if peo­ple believe that you believe in what you’re singing, then you’ve cap­tured people’s atten­tion, even nerdy music crit­ics like myself who typ­i­cally lis­ten to indie-​pop, punk, hip-​hop, and weird elec­tronic stuff. And maybe that’s why I pre­fer the fem­i­nine side of the genre — I believe these women, with their tales of woe and heartache — whereas too many guys sound like they’re con­tent telling some­one else’s story.