Karen Elson Walks Well With Ghosts

It’s hard not to be skeptical when a well-renowned musician gets married and starts making music with his wife – especially when said wife hasn’t exactly had much of a musical career previous to the marriage. Whatever the case, it would be unfair to judge Karen Elsons’s first album, The Ghost Who Walks, based on her husband’s (Jack White) career. Sure, Mr. White produced and played drums on the album, but, according to Karen, “never changed anything or said ‘you need to do this.’” We recall Courtney Love saying something like that about Kurt Cobain during Hole’s very short glory days (AKA before Kurt died), but let’s leave the husband factor outside of the equation for now.

The factor that cannot be left out of the equation is that there currently exists an abundance of female singers in the pop-rock-country-infused-blues-folk-whatever genre. Not to sound misogynistic, but you can go from Jenny Lewis to Cat Power, to Zooey Deschanel, to Alison Krauss, to KT Tunstall, all the way down to Taylor Swift, and you have a bit of a crowded market here. Yes, all those singers have their singularities that make them stand out from each other in special ways (except for Swift), but it’s still hard to see what room there would be for Karen Elson to stand out. This is the same gut-reaction anyone in their right mind would have to a new trip-hop act these days – we already have Portishead and Massive Attack, and those are as good as it gets, so why more?

The only reason I’m even mentioning those other female singers is because, on a first listen, The Ghost Who Walks will likely remind you of them too – especially Jenny Lewis. But I had a look at Karen’s biography on her website, saw her referencing PJ Harvey’s “spooky” video for Down By The Water, which was all the rage on MTV back then. I kept that word “spooky” on my mind during the second listen through, and the beauty of the album suddenly started to flow out of the speakers.

The Ghost opens with its title track, which, according to the author, is a nickname she had when she was a teenager for being “tall, pale, and a little bit haunted”. And indeed, “haunting” is an adjective that’s appropriate for a big portion of this album’s atmosphere, with no shortage of creepy keyboard and guitar effects showing up whenever you feel like the album might get stale.

The inherent eeriness of these “haunted” songs is arguably what makes them interesting in the first place. Tracks like Pretty Babies and 100 Years From Now, while cheery, poppy songs on the surface, show a darker side upon closer inspection thanks to little details like a decaying slide guitar in the background. This eeriness, however, is often more curious than properly scary. For example, it’s not nearly as dark as, say, PJ Harvey’s White Chalk, but a comparison can surely be drawn. While White Chalk sounded like a woman accepting the fate of dwelling in darkness for eternity, The Ghost Who Walks sounds like a woman who would be more than glad to get to know the ghosts who haunt her existence before she can properly join them.

That curiosity is well represented in the instrumentation too, more often than not featuring a band complete with violins, and accordions, and backup singers, and whatnot. Karen’s backing band is comprised of Jackson Smith on guitar, Rachelle Garniez (from Karen’s cabaret group The Citizen’s Band) on accordion and backup vocals, My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel on pedal steel, and the exact same rhythm section from The Dead Weather: Jack White on drums and Jack Lawrence on bass, who, of course, do a tremendous job.

The band showcases two slightly distinct styles of playing on the album. The first one, more apparent on side one, is comprised of mostly standard, pleasant pop-folk-rock tunes that exemplify the aforementioned “spookiness” through keyboards and slide guitar. The other style, more apparent on the second half of the album, brings out the country violins, multi-layered vocals and accordion. This immediately recalled one of my favorite experiments in country-rock-folk-etc, The Raconteur’s Consolers of the Lonely. Tracks like Cruel Summer and Garden present a welcome complexity that’s not unlike that of the Racs’ second album, surely thanks in part to Little Jack Lawrence’s bass. And then, towards the end, you get a couple of tracks that rock harder than any of the previous songs: A Thief At My Door, with its absolutely delicious breakdown, and the closing track Mouths to Feed, which recalls a bit of Cat Power’s finest moments, if only she decided to use a full band.

Looking back on my “why more?’ question, I can attest that Karen Elson does differentiate herself from all those other singers aforementioned. While The Ghost Who Walks is a bit short on particularly awesome moments, it’s an overall cohesive album that has a good balance between atmosphere and strong songwriting. And it’s more than enough promise to show that Karen Elson has what it takes to rise above “me-too” status.