Rebecca Loebe – Give Up Your Ghosts
Blue Corn Music
– out now
3 / 5
Austin, TX Rebecca Loebe saunters onto her fifth full-length with a pop-inspired folk style. Give Up Your Ghosts centers its sound around Loebe’s vocals and acoustic guitar, with occasional percussion, backing electric guitar, and other electric elements. Stylistically, Loebe’s sound doesn’t surprise, but that isn’t always a bad thing.
The single “Tattoo” is a bare-bones Loebe with acoustic, about a broken relationship and its remnants, a tattoo. Sonically, it’s a sweet song, the small touches of backing guitar melting into the song seamlessly; the simple, effective sounds lift up what would normally be a tired theme of a misguided tattoo. Our favorite on here is the entrancing pop of “Got Away,” thematically the foil to “Tattoo,” which showcases a more upbeat and vocally dynamic Loebe – a song to sing along with. But a handful of the other tracks on here, such as “On Your Mark” and the title track “Ghosts,” are placid and unmemorable. “On Your Mark” illustrates anything other than a race, with Loebe’s vocals showing little enthusiasm for the song. “Ghosts” feels tired sonically, far too complacent, and doesn’t stick out.
Give Up Your Ghosts has a few good tracks, but not enough to pull the album back from a forgotten eternity. Grab those singles, but otherwise take a soft pass.
Check out Loebe’s site right here.