Rebecca Pronsky 'Viewfinder'

Nine Mile Records (2011)

The brooklyn songstress who makes you think

• Pronsky is a confident and powerful Brooklyn vocalist who delivers her world weary lyrics with a big city girl authority alongside a sprinkling of little girl lost to an Americana backline with a hint of jazz.

• Her third album, 'Viewfinder' is music for the generation; largely a reflection of recession, war and loss and how it has affected our lives. However, to read between the lines and decipher the abstract and metaphorical content of her words is to take heart. She is an optimist. Her heart is strong but tender. Her words are at first disillusioned but then point to a better future, her melodies both exhilarating and haunting and her delivery immaculate.

  Opening number ‘Hard Times’ is an example. Dig beneath the stomping country hook and you are reminded that “When the world is dangerous the thieves seem like good men/who come to pull you from the dust, your sudden good luck friend”. Is she warning us away from loan sharks, perhaps? Make your own mind up, but one thing is certain - by album closer ‘Good life’ her exquisite vocal control convinces you there is no self-pity in her make-up, only a desire to be understood alongside a talent for expression that makes you desperate to understand.

  The listener is invited into the artist’s world and has no desire to leave. It’s clear that this lady’s crooning chords have been honed to perfection. And it’s not for the ipod shuffle setting either. Although there are potential hits at every turn something about the gradual unravelling of her perceptions makes this more of a start to finish in a comfy armchair listen, or indeed a dimly lit basement bar with a gin and tonic. Its thinking music while so many of her contemporaries remain background. Twang seems to be the word doing the rounds and while there is more of a country edge to Pronsky’s sound I put this down to Rich Bennett’s influence. They are a team in every way and his production and multi-instrumental stamp is impossible to ignore. It’s all over this record.

  ‘Day of the Dead, Give up Too Easily’ and ‘Anything But Good’ lead up to first single and probably the best song here in ‘Aberdeen’. In ‘Special’ she sings of her experiences of war while on ‘Fragile World’ she lays bare her soul as well as her band and takes up the acoustic guitar for a sentimental moment. Currently touring the UK (I caught her at Camden Town’s Green Note), it seems she is finally ready to take us by storm over here.

  She can rock n roll, she’s as folksy as the best of them, she can jazz it up when called upon and her voice is sublime. But it’s that country “twang” that is making her name and its one that will become heard more and more.