Nicole Dollanganger
Image courtesy of the artist
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Nicole Dollanganger's new album Married In Mount Airy is a world in which gloomy situations melt into eerily affecting melodies. The Canadian artist's first full-length in five years marries stripped-back pianos and bare arrangements with confessional lyrics about bad men, troubled relationships, wasted dreams,and even a bloody summer BBQ. There's a beauty amid the bleak gothic folk, however, with Dollanganger's painterly lyrics creating deft imagery from some of life's darkest moments.
On stand-out song "Dogwood" she turns to divine intervention when all other avenues have been exhausted while caring for a loved one facing addiction problems. "Oh, Lord, Please don't give him those wings," she pleads over a delicately strummed acoustic guitar sitting above a deathly bass hum. Her voice goes up a register as she faces up to the reality that her cries are likely faling on deaf ears. "I'm not sure if you can hear this," she says, "but I rеad your name across his chest and I thought I'd try."
In revealing intimate details of a partner's body while admitting to her own helplessness, Dollanganger's vulnerability is on display in the most naked of ways. So too is the purity of her love; refusing to let go, loyal in even the hardest moment.
