Jennifer Castle 
The last time that Jennifer Castle was seen around these parts she was found weaving the natural with the ephemeral, creating an album of folk odes in thrall with the natural world. Four years on and she’s returned from the clouds and climbed down the trees to wander among the rabble, reckoning with middle age, faith, foundations, humanity, and hubris. It’s a more grounded record than her last, letting go the gossamer wings that let her soar so high in the past in favor of road-dusted Americana and country. Though, true to her roots, the record doesn’t settle into anyone else’s mold for either genre.
Castle settles into the new soil gently, still set by the hearth on the title track, a moment waking from the dream of Monarch Season. She spends the first half of the album inching closer to the crumple of daily life. Song by song she edges towards the sighs and settling that make for the best country backdrops. “Some Friends” saunters to the porch, a lonesome rumination on dishonesty, trust, and those you’d once held close. The sounds grow grander — dark drama soaking “Trust,” soaring strings lofting “Louis” — until the record drops the curtain and canters into the stage light halo of “Full Moon in Leo,” a Muscle Shoals-shaded country soul swinger that’s winking more than once in Dusty Springfield’s direction.
Likewise “Mary Miracle” embraces the full breadth of the band behind her, both as big and bold as I’ve heard Castle allow herself to be. The peak tumbles over the edge and back towards temperance as the album winds down (but not out). The strings and splendor collide once more on “Blowing Kisses,” before “Earthsong” lets the late night smoke curl once more around her sound. The song slows time, hoping to claw back a few more minutes before the dawn comes to devour them. By the end we’re back toward the slow saunter of the beginning, but the dream has long since faded, replaced by a slow-drag of reality and a resilience that guards the heart. Castle has long been a whispered-about treasure, a songwriter’s songwriter, but with Camelot she’s poised to garner a few louder adulations. It’s great to see her shine.
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