Let's jump-start the week with a mighty roar of defiance. Brandi Carlile's roar, to be specific.
"Raise Hell" is from her excellent album (and they're all excellent albums) Bear Creek. The stomping, driven track taps into a genre with many names -- dark country, Gothic Americana, Southern Gothic, call it what you will -- and feels like a storm rolling in. Carlile sings like a grim survivor or a dark avenging angel, her rasping, yodeling howl laced with a fierce joy. The lyrics are enigmatic, the imagery elemental, like a lost myth from Genesis or a campfire tale to keep the kids up at night. Interpretations may vary, but the song's iron emotional core is clear: the singer is facing down what feels like an apocalypse -- of the heart, of the world -- and WILL NOT BACK DOWN. Whatever it takes, she'll be the last one standing.
The album track is fantastic (and it's what's going on the Spotify list), but Carlile live is phenomenal. This performance at the 2017 Boston Calling Music Festival shows her at the height of her powers: cheerfully badass and supremely confident, whooping and hollering, cueing her band -- including her essential collaborators, the Hanseroth twins Phil and Tim -- to stop and start on a dime, luxuriating in held-out harmonies and stretched-out pauses, holding the audience in the palm of her hand. "Raise Hell" raises hell, and it's glorious and powerful to behold.
BONUS: The full Boston set (which you want to watch, you know you do) is here.
Have a good week, and let's raise some hell of our own, staring down what devils may come. As I've said before: this day will not break us. We've got this, together.
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Listen to the Spotify playlist here.
Watch the YouTube playlist here.
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