Flying With Angels by Suzanne Vega
'Flying With Angels' by Suzanne Vega
The voice, if you’ve heard it before, is impossible not to recognize. The melodic diction. The dry sensuality. The hint that, every time the singer opens her mouth near a microphone, she’s confronting shyness. The voice belongs to folk, rock, and pop artist Suzanne Vega, and on Flying With Angels, she moves it through her first collection of new songs in over a decade.
She has not been busy doing nothing in the intervening years—a studio album from 2016 and a live album from 2020 explore her interest in writer Carson McCullers and the New York City scene where she developed her talents—but she clearly finds warmth in a return to generating and interpreting her own material.
Vega’s broad inspiration results in a wide variance of musical styles. Working primarily with longtime collaborator Gerry Leonard (who produces and arranges everything here, writes or co-writes most of the music, and plays guitar throughout), she could spin off entire EPs and LPs from several of the tracks.
“Chambermaid,” her reverse-angle version of Bob Dylan’s “I Want You,” suggests an entire set of modern reconfigurations of his songbook; “Galway” might lead to a longer exploration of UK folk music with Richard Thompson, or members of the Pogues; and “Love Thief,” with a lounge-jazz aura and backing vocalists worthy of Steely Dan, could be the start of the Suzanne Vega Soul Revue.
Leonard’s AOR/MOR production slightly flattens the variety, although some touches—the tuneful folk-pop curl of the main guitar melody of “Speakers’ Corner,” reminiscent of George Harrison and Jenny Lewis; the muted waltz of “Last Train from Mariupol”—rise up anyway.
Vega’s voice is the stronger, sharper unifier. From the pop-rock hex cast by “Witch” to the punky parade of “Rats,” her slight emotional remove and steady delivery give every track of Flying With Angels a cobweb connection to every other. She takes her bow with unshowy class.
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Get Flying With Angels on Amazon here.
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