Juanita Stein is poetically drifting forward into her own creative world on every song off her wittingly Beautiful new album, The Weightless Hour. Juanita’s songwriting contains the perfect mixture of nostalgia and complete originality that is extremely difficult to pin down, and it is a type of songwriter that is very rare in our current musical climate. The stripped-back nature of these songs allows Juanita’s elegiacally minimalist lyricism to be perceived through open ears without any distraction.

The warm and beautifully cinematic introduction to this record is the title track The Weightless Hour, which is not only a perfect title for the ambience of the song and album to follow, but it is a Brilliant and alluring lyrical representation of the act of living in the present and the weightlessness that we feel in our daily lives. The song contains hauntingly present vocal performances and a gorgeous bed of ambient guitar melodies gliding through the track’s latter half. After the album’s meditative Opening track, we hear Juanita perform the energetic and powerful classic Mother Nature’s Scorn. A song representing Juanitas works so perfectly, crushing, lush and romantic. The song contains gorgeously multi-tracked vocals drenched in reverb over top of a fantastic chord progression and some tastefully placed guitar leads. The following two tracks, The Game and Old World, are a perfect pair of cinematic and haunting melodramatic Western ballads. In the Old World, there are some very impressive fingerstyle guitars that are similar to Western guitar icon Marty Robbins.

The 90s alt-country influence is brought to new territories in On The Weightless Hour, specifically in the following couple tracks Carry Me and Motionless, with soaring vocal melodies and unpredictable chord changes to keep you finding interesting nuances with each listen. Carry Me is another gorgeous and poetic folk cut that sticks to its laid-back foundation where Motionless has one of the most energetic and passion-filled vocal performances on the record. Daily Rituals features some of the album’s most diverse set of instrumental elements, such as light springs and gorgeous piano passages. This album is structured unpredictably and picks up energy on the back half With Daily Rituals and the eighth track Ceremony, which is another high-energy song and one of the only cuts off the records that feature any sort of drums. Driving Nowhere features some moody lyrical imagery and a low and effective male vocal floating over the choruses. The ending of this track showcases Juanita’s talent for recording lush and airy vocal harmonies that are incredibly immersive and are the star of the show for me on this track.

The harmonies and chord change on the final track Delilah are no short of inventive and exciting and end the album off in a beautiful and theatrical fashion. It is a perfect album to listen to during this time of the year as it will warm your soul and remind you of the beauty of simple and effective songwriting.

Pre-order THE WEIGHTLESS HOUR by Juanita Stein HERE