Singer-songwriter Stephanie Phillips embraces life’s shifting terrain on Walking the Tightrope, a progressive-folk album shaped by profound personal upheaval, including bereavement and new love. Across warmly layered instrumentation and searching lyricism, Phillips balances grief, hope, and the complexities of human connection with affecting melodic clarity.
Album opener “Try As We Might” quickly showcases Phillips’ magnetic songwriting, here expanding from initial folk-laden introspection to a “looking for signs” sense of self-betterment, where jangling guitar tones lend a warming quality. The reference to “praying for change, that might never happen” is relatable in its mixture of personal aspiration and reality, ultimately coming to terms with making the most of crafting a life we desire. Elsewhere, the album’s title track delights in its harmonious backing layers, asking “when will the balancing end?” in searching for stability through times of tumult, metaphorically captured by a fraying tightrope.
Another highlight, “Force of Nature” struts a beautifully trickling guitar presence amidst gentle piano. “She’s looking for you, in sermons and stories,” Phillips’ delivery moves with poetic entrancement, moving into perspectives of true love with heightened melodic enjoyment. Album finale “Study in Opposites” is a fantastic showcase in songwriting as well. “I know that I’m a contrast from your customary ways, and my chaos sometimes complicates your ordinary days,” her lead presence soars, conveying how some of the best relationships and partnerships can arise from two people who are polar opposites. Walking the Tightrope is a consistently enjoyable full-length success from Stephanie Phillips.
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“Walking the Tightrope” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
