Vanessa Peters

The Burn The Truth The Lies

Texas singer Vanessa Peters is another artist who has used the public forum Kickstarter to help finance a record, collecting fans’ money to pay for studio time and equipment. It is a successful model, employed less widely in the UK and on a smaller scale by the likes of Marillion. However in the States more unsigned bands are using it and you get more artists involved that are on the way up, as opposed to at the other end of their career.

But this is a record that might not have seen the light of day at all, even with fans funding it. After a series of albums and tours with the band Ice Cream on Mondays, the band broke up in 2009, leaving Peters wondering whether she would continue recording. Last year she recorded the well received The Christmas We Hoped For, giving her the confidence to produce the excellently titled The Burn The Truth The Lies.

With a voice somewhere between Shawn Colvin and Suzanne Vega, Peters shares some of her most intimate lyrics here, with a feeling that this is the most open and truthful collection of songs she has recorded. Put together at the legendary Texas Treefort Studios in Austin and engineered by Jim Vollentine (Patty Griffin, Spoon), the album is an elegant country tinged trip through the emotions.

There are some cutting observations about relationships, like on the slightly plodding opener A Good Judge (“Not wanting me to leave is not the same thing as wanting me to say”) and well-crafted stories, like the nostalgic Favorite Day (“Those were younger actors playing our parts, we wouldn’t know our lives now but once we knew them by heart”).

The song-writing is classy throughout and Peters certainly has a way with words, but also crucially knows a good melody. The upbeat Bright Red and the harder edged String Too Short To Use sit comfortably against her more reflective moments like the American Football referencing Copilot. This is a crowded field, but it is good news that Vanessa Peters decided to carry on recording.