Lionheart
Merge
2018
Rating: 8 black teeth out of 10
“Lionheart” is the first “solo” record for H.C. McEntire (aka Heather McEntire), but I’ll be perfectly honest – outside of a lack of Jenks Miller’s guitar, I’m not at all sure what distinguishes this from any other Mount Moriah release (and based on the last time I saw Mount Moriah live, I’m not even sure Jenks is still in the band). Mount Moriah was always a delivery vehicle for McEntire’s voice anyways, which for my money is one of the very best in all of music-dom, so it’s really no surprise that it sounds like her group efforts. I did think coming in that this might be a pretty mellow effort, just HC and her guitar for the most part because this is how she had been presenting many of these songs live around the Triangle. She went in the total opposite direction though – this album is packed, musically-speaking - clearly she threw up a bat signal to half of the musicians in the greater North Carolina area, and plenty more beyond that – amongst many other collaborators, included here are Phil Cook (Megafaun, a ton of different Justin Vernon projects), Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), William Tyler (Lambchop plus all his rad solo work), Tift Merritt, Ryan Gustafson (Dead Tongues), Angel Olsen, Daniel Hart (Polyphonic Spree, Dark Rooms, Rosebuds, friggin’ major Hollywood film scores), Mary Lattimore…I’m going to stop naming names now, but I think you get the point. “Lionheart” hits its peak right in the middle – “Quartz In The Valley,” “When You Come For Me,” and “Red Silo” are as good as anything she’s written since “Lament” (not only the best Mount Moriah song, but one of the best songs of the last decade period). This album really pays off after multiple listens – the score goes higher and higher with each successive play through.
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