Review: Esme Patterson-We Were Wild

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Esme Patterson at Renwick Mansion for Daytrotter’s #MoellerMondays. Davenport, IA 12/8/14 © Roberta/Flickr

 

Esme Patterson, formerly of Paper Bird, released her third album, We Were Wild, and with it brought a slightly different sound.

Dance with Wild Abandon

The album’s title should be a clue in to what you feel when listening to its songs.  Moreover, I found myself wanting to dance with wild abandon, burn my bra, and scream at the top of my lungs from the ledge of a canyon.  I don’t know if that was Esme’s intent.  But the peppy free bird style of We Were Wild evokes a lot of uninhibited behavior.

“Feel Right” totally sets the tone for her ‘wild’ album as it discusses the inhumanity, or rather it amplifies the animalistic and primal base, of human beings.

Throughout the album she combines the sadness of vintage country and the freedom of 60’s rock, the former of which is best evidenced in the song, “Wanting Ain’t Getting.”

In “No River” she gives us a retro soul sound, which made this my favorite track on the album.

Social Commentary

If you listen to this album, even passively you can see clearly how Esme is using her music to analyze society at large.  And she sounds so good doing it. We Are Wild gets a 4.3 out of 5.