It has often been said that in our youngest days, our eyes are closed to the real world. If we are lucky, we live in the world that our parents have created for us, by their rules and through their expectations.
Then, in our adolescence, we are shown the true potential of life, our dreams go into overdrive, and we are tempted for the first time by all the things that we could do and be. But if our eyes are truly open, we also experience true sadness, fear and disappointment for the human race for the first time.
Ellie Grace, a young songwriter with a resonant singing voice and plenty to say with it, finds herself head-to-head with her own expectations of the world and its natural limitations on her album “Nothing is Easy,” a soulful affair where Grace tries to make sense of the trappings of the modern world.
If you’ve been scared senseless by recent news and by the direction in which the world has been moving, this may be the record for you, the gentle embrace that acknowledges the suffering that preceded it.
In fact, listen to the album’s opening track, “Hope Resides”, and you may discover some mournful tones echoing over that folk-rock instrumentation. This isn’t, however, an anthem of despondence. It’s an invitation to stretch out your arms and get a hold of anything that may lead you toward better days.
On “Crooked Laugh” with its dynamic, classic-rock feel, Grace sings about “feeling too much and not enough,” and about hitting a mental wall despite all of her efforts. It’s a personal sound, but a sentiment that so many people in the world right now can identify with.
“My Favorite Movie,” possibly the best cut on the album, allows the singer’s dramatic, resonant vocals, which have been blessed with an old, soulful tone, to float above a sparse acoustic guitar-lead arrangement. It’s one more song of heartbreak, with one more prayer of better days buried deep inside it.
Grace’s impressions of the world are brand new. The singer-songwriter is experiencing these things for the first time, and this is why the temperature rises every time she sings a note. But the art itself is an ancient one, part of a folk tradition of storytelling. Both these things should make “Nothing is Easy” appeal to fans of classic rock, folk and soul music.
Where does it all leave us? Heartbroken, yet hopeful that there’s something better waiting just around the corner. Ellie Grace’s music breaks you apart, but is considerate to help put you back together.
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