Original article: https://www.imaai.org/mia-suzanne-walker-is-contributing-a-color-to-indie-folk-music/

“Singin’ a song / Cardinal on the fence / Time on my hands / Since I, I don’t know when” croons Mia Suzanne Walker in the opening lines of her song “Passing Me By,” one of the ten comprising Suzanne’s Band’s new album Back to You, her every word echoing the emotion in the melodies behind her. For Walker, every verse is an opportunity to connect with the audience on a musical and spiritual level, and in her latest release Back to You, she rejects the very notion of adhering to one specified set of rules when it comes to making an evocative harmony all the more rousing. She’s following the beat of her own drum here, and exceeding the expectations surrounding the creation of a follow-up to her debut, Breathe.

Vocal harmonies are the undebatable centerpiece for every song on Back to You, but I wouldn’t say that they overshadow the instrumental bedrock of tracks like “Look Up,” “Don’t Give Up Yet” and “Fault in My Stars” at all; actually, the exact opposite. Walker wants us to understand the depth of the narrative in all of these songs, and by investing so much in the relationship between her voice and the backing band, she makes it impossible for us to experience a lyric without feeling the emotion integrated with the music as well. She’s as multidimensional a songwriter as they come, but she isn’t getting overambitious in Back to You – instead, she’s recording the kind of material that best suites her skillset.

There’s more instrumental contrast in “On a Good Day,” “Don’t Give Up Yet,” “I Almost Said I Do” and “Gonna Rise Up” than there was in the whole of the first extended play we heard from Suzanne’s Band, Breathe (released in 2018), and it would surprise me a great deal if I were the only critic to notice as much. If Walker was trying to redefine her identity with a multifaceted attack in Back to You, she essentially hit this one out of the park and then some, because from every angle that I’ve analyzed it, she seems to be going out of her way to make each element within her style of play stand out and affect the mood of any given composition as much as producers would her cornerstone attributes.

If you’re looking for the perfect mix of homespun, old fashioned country crooning and contemporary folk/pop aesthetics in a single cocktail, you’re going to want to add Suzanne’s Band’s Back to You to your record collection a lot sooner than later. With the assistance of her ably-chosen cast of supporting players, Mia Suzanne Walker is contributing a color to indie folk music that had been mostly absent from the genre in the early and mid-2010’s, and now that the 2020’s are finally upon us, I think we’re going to see her come into her own in ways that had only been teased in her early efforts. I’ll be keeping an eye on her growth, and I’d recommend music fans everywhere think about doing the same.

Clay Burton

Original article: https://mobyorkcity.com/back-to-you-lp-by-suzannes-band/

In the shadow of a ghostly wind, an acoustic guitar begins to play, the voice of one Mia Suzanne Walker not too far behind from its opening salvo of string melodies. This is “Write a Book,” an excerpt from the album Back to You by Suzanne’s Band, and it’s one of the better examples I can point to when talking about the experimentation its lead singer is toying with in her latest release. In her debut EP Breathe, Walker proved she could do some amazing things with the mic in her hand, but here, she takes her craftsmanship to a whole new level of accessibility.

There’s a lot of emphasis on the strings in the songs “Fault in My Stars,” “Passing Me By,” the percussion-powered “Don’t Give Up Yet” and “Wonder When,” and rightly so. There’s really no better compliment to the vocal that Walker is dispensing with ease from the middle of the mix in all four of these tracks, and though she arguably can make just as much magic with a piano melody (check out the harmonies in “Look Up”), she’s smart enough to know exactly which elements to pair with the particular singing styles she’s utilizing in Back to You.

The energy that I get from “Wonder When,” “I Almost Said I Do” and the title track is steeped in an unapologetically live format, leading me to think that these songs were probably created with Suzanne’s Band’s stage show in mind. I haven’t seen her sing in-person for myself yet, but based on the reception she’s got from her performances in the past, I can imagine that these new compositions will do very well with the current setlist she’s been working with on the road. She’s got a great presence, and in this kind of music, that’s as important as having lyrical substance – if not a bit more so, on occasion.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xiCZHJIevKXif9mZo7TWR

Lyrically speaking, I think that Walker sounds a lot more vulnerable in songs like “Look Up,” “On a Good Day,” “Don’t Give Up Yet” and “I Almost Said I Do” than she ever has in previous recordings. It would be nice to hear her exploit the depth of her songwriting abilities more as the 2020’s press on, because at the end of the day, she has a grasp of melodic composing that is appealing to pop, country and folk listeners alike, which isn’t an easy combination of audiences to win over these days.

Fans new and old alike won’t want to miss out on this latest release from Suzanne’s Band this January, and with any luck, this won’t be the only set of songs that she issues before the year is done. Mia Suzanne Walker is following her heart with her music, and even if she isn’t using the commercial template that so many artists would in a bid to get fame and fortune, my gut tells me that the mainstream spotlight isn’t going to ignore her output for very long. She’s got the chops to do great things in this business, and she’s off to an excellent start in Back to You.

Nicole Killian