An album that successfully adapts and ages the vigor, beauty and outspokenness of Joan Baez's earlier works, "Day After Tomorrow" is a concise 37 minutes of classic folk music.
Baez has a huge discography of folk music, but her latest work, released last week, is different. As a whole, it is a calmer, more rustic and spiritual look at life. The high, sweet, poignant vocals that gave such biting depth to songs like "Diamonds and Rust" or "Love is Just a Four Letter Word" are no longer present, but neither is the 30-year-old woman who produced them. Baez, her voice now lower and huskier, has obviously aged.
Instead of succumbing to her age (or even worse, ignoring it), she uses it to her advantage by evolving her musical and vocal style to match who she is today. A wide arrangement of acoustic instruments, including Hawaiian guitar, mandolin, resonator guitar, harmonium, bouzouki and banjolin, back those vocals. All are perfectly woven together by Ray Kennedy, who recorded and mixed the album.
The opening track, written by producer Steve Earle, makes great use of this panoply of instruments to create a deep, warm, lively sound that one would expect from a modern day album. While many new releases suffer from over-production or over-digitization that might ruin the emotion and connection with the music, "Day After Tomorrow" has a refreshingly old-fashioned feel with modern-day clarity.
Both Kennedy and Earle are known for their well-established country music careers, and while a faint flavor of country seeps into the album's sound, the style is folk through and through.
Other standout tracks include "Henry Russell's Last Words," which is a miner's lament to his wife. "Mary" and "The Lower Road" both feature great harmonies by Siobhan Kennedy and Thea Gilmore (who wrote "The Lower Road"), respectively. The title track, written by Tom Waits, is a bare, honest appraisal of the Iraq War (or any conflict for that matter) with only Baez singing and playing guitar. The song evokes current-day issues in the Middle East, but clearly also alludes to historical conflicts such as Vietnam and World War II.
The mark of a good songwriter is the ability to create topical yet timeless messages, and Waits definitely succeeds in that respect. Few, if any, can match Waits' raw, gravelly emotion. But while his version of the song oozes frustration and protest, Baez seems to be consciously taking a more domesticated approach that matches the clean and refined tone present in the rest of the material. The simplicity and intimacy of the mix perfectly conveys Baez's interpretation, but the lack of poignant urgency that marked her earlier days makes the song and the album as a whole feel a little wanting.
While "Day After Tomorrow" still resonates as a solid Baez album, she has adapted her style and accompaniment to create a warm, highly polished collection of folk songs that showcases maturity and vocal style without feeling too old fashioned. Though Baez is an icon of the '60s and '70s, she has moved on and the music reflects that.
Not everyone will be able to connect to this more refined piece of work, but it is refreshing to hear the intention that went into making it. While the album is a bit short, this only serves to further tie it together as a cohesive and direct statement. Considering the myriad of composers from which the material originates, realizing the album's potential was no small feat. Though she sings "I still don't know how I'm supposed to feel," it's obvious that Baez's "Day After Tomorrow" is a carefully crafted work of art that knows exactly how it's supposed to feel.
