Over the course of her five solo albums Sara Storer has
chronicled stories of the land and the people who live on it. She has sung of
heartbreak: the kind caused by droughts and by people. Sometimes she sounds
like she’s from another time – sitting around a campfire in the eighteenth
century, perhaps, preserving stories by singing them, her voice strong and
true.
Storer’s sixth album, Purple
Cockies, is faithful to her personal tradition, but it also sounds like an
album of love songs. These are not the sorts of love songs that crowd charts
with their similar-sounding promises of eternal fidelity: Storer’s songs are of
love in all its messy, glorious forms. Love of parents, of children, of
partners and place. Love that fulfils and breaks. It is also about love of
life, and as Storer’s tone turns almost jaunty on ‘Here I Go Again’, for
example, it sounds like she’s having fun even as she acknowledges that life
isn’t perfect.
I took a long time to appreciate Sara Storer. I realise now
that I used to find her voice too raw – not because she’s an unaccomplished
singer but because she’s so willing to lay herself bare. Depending on where a
listener is in their own life, that kind of exposure can be hard to hear.
Now it’s clear that Storer’s rawness has always been
bravery. She has not been afraid to show us who she is and what’s important to
her. She has not been afraid to show us her heart, and it’s never been more
beautifully shown than on Silos. From
the opening track, ‘My Diamond’, which is about her father and sung with her
brother, Greg Storer, Sara Storer captivates. This is an album that holds you
in its embrace and makes you want to stay there.
Silos is out now through ABC Music/Universal.
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