As the central point of communication in the all-new album Benny’s TV Repair, the strings that adorn Irene Kelley’s “Out of Arkansas,” “The Hills Of Home,” “Bluegrass Radio” and “Something About A Train Sound” are as important as any of the words Kelley sings to us in her latest 11-track masterpiece, but they aren’t overstated in the mix at all. Benny’s TV Repair is a wonderfully layered LP that affords every one of its individual elements a lot of room to breathe, and although it’s definitely not the first Irene Kelley record to make a good impression with country and bluegrass fans alike, it is – in my opinion, at least – a terrific amalgamation of the various sounds and influences that she’s displayed to us in the past.
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“Faster Than Angels Could Fly” and the title track here are somewhat lyrically blunt, but the soft tonality of their instrumentation definitely helps to balance out the aesthetics of the material. Kelley does a good job of adjusting her vocal to match the mood of any given stanza on this album, and while she doesn’t recycle a formula across different tracks, there’s absolutely a stylistic continuity to her performance in Benny’s TV Repair. Her homespun harmonies definitely tie everything together, and though she’s backed by a talented group of players from start to finish in these eleven songs, there’s never any doubts as to who the supreme star of this one-woman show truly is. Simply put, her presence is just too commanding for anyone to steal the spotlight away from her.
I love the production quality of Benny’s TV Repair, and in tracks like “Thunderbird,” the countrified “Anything To Help You Say Goodbye” and “Highway Back To You,” we’re able to appreciate all the color in the melodies because of the crisp tone of each instrument in the mix. The strings are as squeaky clean in “Cabbage Head” as they are in “Walk With Me Today,” and though most everything is built on the foundation of Kelley’s lyrics here, there’s scarcely a moment where any of the music feels overwhelmingly verse-centric or anti-multidimensional – quite the contrary, in fact. Some real time and energy was put into this content, and it doesn’t take an expert critic to recognize as much.
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Benny’s TV Repair is a fascinating bluegrass/country crossover coming to us from a songstress with a proven track record for making good, quality music, and personally I think that it’s her most diversely-appointed LP to see widespread release thus far. Irene Kelley has issued some pretty good music in the last thirteen years, and provided she can continue to refine her craftsmanship with the same diligence she’s exhibited in her last few LPs in the 2020s, she’s going to keep seeing more success as the next decade comes into focus. This is a good collection of simple songs that pack a mighty punch when we’re least expecting them to, and if that sounds like your style, it could make for the perfect pastoral vocal record to finish up 2019 with.
Jodi Marxbury