“Real Warmth” is an important album for Joan Shelley, a fixed point in a constantly evolving career, far from the stereotypes of certain country-folk singer-songwriters. An authentic and genuine inspiration animates the album of the American artist, who chose to record it in Toronto with the support of most of the musicians involved in the latest Weather Station project “Humanhood” (Tamara Lindeman is also involved), with her partner Nathan Salsburg, her colleague and friend Doug Paisley and the producer Ben Whiteley (known for his collaboration with Jake Xerxes Fussell).
While the lyrics tackle and try to delicately analyze important themes such as anguish over humanity's increasingly tenuous relationship with nature and other living beings, the music is full of more solid and rhythmically fluid elements. The result is a record full of ripples and memorable melodies, perhaps among the most intense of the Kentucky singer-songwriter's long career.
Defined by Shelley herself as recipes for desperate times, the thirteen songs of “Real Warmth” are musically enveloping and powerful. The voice remains the protagonist both when the intertwining of almost ethnic rhythms, acoustic guitar and electronics veers towards folktronica (“Ever Entwine”), and in the most intimate and intense moments, such as the splendid “The Orchard” which has all the characteristics ofinstant classic.
It's impossible to keep family affections out of such a personal and lyrically refined album. In the country ballad “New Anthem”, Joan gives the stage to steel guitar and to the counterpoint of his partner Nathan Salsburg, not without having first underlined the duties and joys of married life and the love for his daughter in “Everybody”.
In this journey between roots and new vibrations the author chisels small jewels of contemporary folk, between intertwining acoustic guitars and Wurlitzers that yearn for more ambitious sounds, poised between jazz and psychedelia (“Field Guide To Wild Life”), instrumental codas that frame a melody with enigmatic and vibrant tones (“Wooden Boat”) and a sax in free will that frames a ballad set on a sensual groove (“On The Gold And Silver”).
It is a record that travels towards new boundaries, “Real Warmth”, a collection of songs where there is no shortage of amiable utopia (“Heaven Knows”) and a comforting sense of hope (“The Hum”), which for a brief moment offer an intelligent refuge from mediocrity and indifference.
I'm not entirely sure this is Joan Shelley's best album, although songs like “Who Do You Want Checking In On You” and the title track they strengthen the thesis, but I have many reasons to believe so.
29/11/2025
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
