Suzanne Vega – Flying With Angels – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Suzanne Vega was always something of an old soul. Even when she emerged in her mid-twenties in 1985, there was a sort of worldliness about her, as if she’d been through a lot. She releases music fairly infrequently these days but has returned with her first album in 11 years and her ninth overall.

It opens with the bright strum of Speakers’ Corner.  The title track, which follows, is more familiar fare to those who’ve lost track of her over the years, and feels like more comfortable territory for her.  A moody bit of guitar jangle, her voice hasn’t lost any of its charm over the years.  Witch snaps and snarls in a way you might not associate with her.  Chambermaid is extremely unusual; it borrows the melody, and it even sounds like some of the instrumentation from Bob Dylan’s I Want You.  Hard to know what the point of it is.  Love Thief is an unusual track for Vega, in that it’s a kind of slowburn R&B/funk track with backing singers giving it the “yeah, yeah, yeahs”.

The album improves after this with the folky Last Train From Mariupol and the gorgeously downbeat Alley.  The busy strum Rats is as odd a track as she’s recorded, a stream-of-consciousness type rant about the aforementioned, and comes across as a bit gimmicky.  The album finishes with the upbeat folk of Galway.

It’s probably not going to go down as a classic Suzanne Vega album, but for those looking for ten new Suzanne Vega songs, this will do just fine.

Speakers’ Corner