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Shannon Wright's debut Flight Safety presented her as a pretty little indie busker, her vibrant voice singing its lusty tales of drama and woe through easily understandable metaphor over a set of aggressive acoustic-guitar-strumming songs, with prettiness added on the fringes in lacy flourishes of Hammond or Wurlitzer. Her third album, Dyed in the Wool, shows a completely different Wright. She still has that busty, belty voice, but, here, in this now, she's comfortably assumed this role of belligerent chanteuse, and the music has moved its mood accordingly, favoring a drama that works well with Wright's dramatic vocals. There is some help from the Rachel's/Shipping News family, but, for the most part, it's Wright herself who is directing these new desires. Clocking in at a somewhat punk-rock length in the compact disc format — 12 songs, 34 minutes — Dyed in the Wool carries itself with an aggressive, emotionally fraught disposition, with Wright's spirited evocations of classical piano dispensing the gaiety of their lively measures, reveling instead in the instrument's dark history. The whole feels somewhat removed from this time and place, its percussive playings of pianos and drums and guitars and strings striking with a defiant precision most uncommon in the alt idiom; even the sampled ghosted string section cutting in and out of "Mother of Sleeping" seems steeped in historical affect. That said, standing alone doesn't mean the album totally stands alone; its particular and peculiar mannerisms still aren't far from PJ Harvey's gothic efforts on Is This Desire? or Mary Timony on Mountains. But, even in such a comparison, Wright's latest work stands up to those records in pride and power, its insolence a most blessed blessing that drives it forward, its captivating onward motion propelled by the swiftness of its running time.
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