Michelle Lewis, with her folk/pop lilt and incredibly personal, storytelling narratives, is the true definition of a songwriter; as her press pack suggests, she is “too refined to call folk and too personal to call pop”. The Boston native sings with a very natural, raw and incredibly emotive voice that is light and almost child-like in its make-up, something which adds to the crashing of expectations as she weaves it in and out of weighty lyrics about love, heartbreak, and the mysteries of life.
‘The Parts of Us That Still Remain’ is the culmination of many years of musical absorption and nuanced life experience; Michelle released her debut record ‘This Time Around’ in 2004 and follow-up EPs ‘Broken’ and ‘Paris’ in 2009 and 2011, while this record, her second full-length offering, became available last year. Featuring her continued collaboration with producer Anthony J Resta, co-writes with Robby Hecht and sound designing from Conan Skyrme, this is a very complete record that has received no end of positive press for its understated charm and authentic Americana roots, underneath a comfortable bed of alt pop songcraft. Now Michelle is gearing up for an Ireland and UK tour through June and July to promote the record, so it seems an appropriate time to return to its beauty and truth.
The album opens with the truly arresting ‘Sorry I Forgot To Write’; built from a simple arrangement, an addictive and extremely pretty melody, and a lyric that hits you right in the guts with its effortless portrayal of thoughts and feelings from a lingering, long distance love. “Sorry I forgot to write, I know it’s been so long since I let you in anyway,” She begins simply, admitting, “But I still feel you in my breath, I think about your beauty all the time. We’ll always want one more chance to get it right.” It is here where we find the romantic album title, a perfect assertion of the way we never truly get over the ones we fall in love with – always carrying them with us, wondering what might have been. It is perhaps my highlight of the album for the way it captures my attention and leaves me feeling genuinely bereft, full of sadness and regret.
Still, that’s not to say that the rest of the album is not up to par; in fact, far from it. In ‘None of That Now’, Michelle proves that the incredible poignancy of a few carefully curated lines and images from the lead track was not a fluke. “Piles of laundry on the bedroom floor, handle’s broken on the bathroom door,” She sings as the song opens. “There’s stacks of bills laying all around, oh but I don’t care about none of that now. The fridge is empty, the cupboard ignored. The gas light’s shining on my dashboard. There’s gonna be traffic all the way downtown, oh but I don’t care about none of that now.” In beautiful, cinematic vignettes and against a soothing accordion, Michelle reminds us of the sheer power love has in bringing perspective to our lives. In one swift moment, all of her troubles are irrelevant, and the love song turns into a deftly-orchestrated, culturally referential fairy tale on ‘Just Like A Movie’.
On ‘The Parts of Us That Still Remain’, Michelle is enveloped in the light of love, torn by the darkness of past scars, and driven by the wide-eyed lust for life that sees her travelling to new places. “I won’t stop until I get there, I will run, run, run,” she sings on ‘Run Run Run’, while a love has her ‘Runnin’ Back Home’ elsewhere on the album. ‘Paris’, meanwhile, finds her wading through the depths of depression, forever a wanderlust and not able to suppress the hole she feels in her heart. But she realizes her error in ‘Lost In LA’, a plea to a lover not to leave her because the stars are not as bright, nor does life make as much sense, without the clarity of a love by her side. “Now I feel like I’m losing touch, how can you tell if what you’ve got will ever be enough?” She asks on ‘Something That Simple’, a kind of mission statement for the album, which does seem to come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, love is what you need. That love is enough. Even if there are only parts of us that still remain after the rollercoaster of life.
