Advance Review - Sarah Walk: Another Me (August 21, 2020) via One Little Independent
The ‘80s (and the ‘90s as an extension of) Have Grown Up.
I have been hearing a lot of Madonna lately. A variety. I heard “Into The Groove” this
morning. “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Borderline,” “Ray of Light,” “Crazy for You,” and “Vogue.” Which reminds me, Camélia and I have also been watching Ryan Murphy’s Pose, a drama that showcases the ball culture world of New York City amidst the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic and Donald Trump. I was alive during that era, but I was a little boy with few worries who knew very little about the world outside my small town.
I’m bringing up the eighties because I hear it throughout Sarah Walk’s Another Me. The pop of “What Do I Want.” The heavy string and piano ballad, “The Outside.” It’s all there but much cleaner and fuller, as if it has been studied and recreated over and over until Sarah Walk could take the reigns and use it for her purposes. And although the sound is unmistakable, the social discussion, that was at times too subtle in the ‘80s, drives the lyrics of this Walk album.
A graduate of Berklee School of Music, Sarah Walk has a lot to live up to. The school has given birth to many successful music careers and Grammy-winning alumni. However, Another Me is a step in the right direction. Starting off with a deliberately quiet song and building song, “Unravel,” the movement of this album flows back and forth from angry to sad to liberated to vulnerable. Yet Walk never loses her balance. She takes each moment with the grace of a true artist, using life’s struggles as strengths and inspiration, and allows the music to balance the emotion.
With pop songs like “What Do I Want” and “The Key” to build a radio audience, this album has the potential to become a hit.
Final Thought: I think Sarah Walk’s choice in style is perfect. It will help her find the audience she needs, but it also shows that the ‘80s was not just a time of Ronald Reagan and cocaine. It was an era of change dressed in bright and colorful clothes.
Favorite Songs: “Same Road,” The Key,” and “Take Me As I Am.”
Rating - 4/5 with the potential to be an anthem album.