“I do believe you can’t live without me” (“Sealed Envelope”)
Since first discovering the music of Reese McHenry back in 2019, I have been a vocal fan and admirer of the North Carolina rock n’ roller. Her music was raw, unfiltered and soulful, and as a person, she was a true fighter and survivor. This made it all the more heartbreaking when I learned last December that she had passed away after a long battle with cancer.
The one bright spot in this dark news was the announcement that McHenry’s family and friends would be releasing a final album posthumously. The album contains five of her final recordings, made over the previous year with legendary indie rock producer John Agnello. The remaining seven are a selection of solo recordings, a cover recorded with stalwart Chapel Hill rockers Spider Bags, and a pair of songs cut with uber-drummer Jon Wurster.
The sequencing of the album is interesting, as the collection opens with the wistful ballad, “Mississippi Blue”, which could certainly be considered a fitting swan song for McHenry. Over a lovely guitar melody, McHenry looks back in a somber tenor, “Time turns into mistakes, and you won’t let me go”, and seems ready to drift off into the ether (“let me melt into you, Mississippi Blue”). The song leads one into thinking they’re about to start a melancholy musical journey.
Not on McHenry’s watch. What follows is one blistering, raucous rocker after another that refuses to let anyone wallow. McHenry rips into an ex on the empowering “I Do What I Want”, and churns out heavy guitars over a 4-step beat on raw, shoegaze “Cosmopolitan”. When McHenry sings “I feel like I’m not even trying”, one could imagine it’s because she makes heavy hitting rock songs like this one sound easy, though it certainly isn’t. The emotion in her vocal performance is heightened by her crack band, building the track’s tension towards a fiery conclusion.
Her lyrics have always had a sharp tongue, and she has no trouble taking the piss out of anyone deserving. One target gets “tell me about your absolution. Tell me about your married girlfriend” on electric blues cut “Absolution, Baby”, while another gets “You can’t unfuck your friends. You fucked it up again” on “Unfuck Your Friends”. This track also is another great example of McHenry’s range, with the song starting in a more rhythmic direction, allowing McHenry to take on a sultry persona, before blasting off into full-on punk rock rage.
There’s a rollicking, piano barroom stomp on “I Don’t Care About Nothing Anymore”, and classic rock pomp mixed with country waltz beats on “Sealed Envelopes”. Rock n’ roll was in McHenry’s blood, and I’m certain it helped keep her going through all the years she battled with illness. Even on the acoustic track “Liz Phair’s Johnny”, it sounds like she’s having fun recording the song alone in a room.
But she did have a delicate side, and after opening with it on “Mississippi Blue”, she finally lets the sadness seep in again as the album closes. There’s a mournful quality to the psych-pop number “Skylight Twilight”, with McHenry asking “Where have you taken my voice? Can I come too?”, and she flirts with nostalgia on “Elliot”. The album’s fitting finale is “Birch Tree Melody”, an elegiac acoustic song the allows moments of hope to shine in, even as lines like “I hope this will last forever” sting the soul when faced with the reality that it didn’t.
Reese McHenry was an embodiment of what rock n’ roll represents; power, rebellion, soul and love. May she be remembered as such, as fans old (and hopefully many new) discover her work and let it soundtrack their lives, dreams and struggles.
The album comes out on March 6th on Suah Sounds. Listening to “Mississippi Blue” here.
The Indy Review 