The CD received a four star rating from Stacy.
A Cold Wind Blows, meaning both the title song and 10 selections that follow, details the different phases of relationships. Debra Lyn achieves this with vocal performances so compelling that listeners have a blueprint, courtesy of one of the more pleasing and clear voices of experience; a singer whose songwriting pen adds an ink-filled flourish consistent with the creative license of imagination.
Debra Lyn’s second studio album, over five years in the making, is yet another collaboration between the singer and her husband, Jeff Silverman. Debra’s co-writer on 6 of these 11 songs (including With or Without You, with a theme of expected, impending loss that Lyn and Silverman co-wrote with the song’s co-producer and co-arranger, Tim Lorsch), Jeff also produced mixed and engineered these songs.
Debra’s measured, eerily uncanny approach to her performance of the title song, introduces the recurring characters in these songs through the lens, and familiar country-music theme, of marital intimacy turned triangular in scope.
One Heart underscores the no-holds-barred morality play theme of these songs, paying particular attention to the fallout from an adulterous relationship from the perspective of each of the parties it touches.
Swim the River is a song of determination to preserve (what’s left of) a relationship, while Closer to Goodbye is the acceptance of what might be the inevitable “other side” of that same coin (i.e., an acceptance, if not an embracing, of the truth as reality sets in).
Believe, “an introspective view on depression,” escapes a maudlin denouement, courtesy of the musical offer of a credible lifeline.
Drunken Fool is an otherwise self-explanatory assessment and resulting ultimatum that segues into If I Never Wake Up Again, another example of the other side of the same coin in which the protagonist weighs her alcohol-infused “choices.”
I’ll Always Miss The Love I Left Behind (remix) is a wistful consideration of what might have been, while So Long Since September (also a remix) is a song of separation resolved (apparently) by a happy ending.
The album’s finale, Till I’m Gone, paints a picture of a woman strong enough to leave a relationship to which only she appears committed, but not without the anguish of a woman still in love with a man unable to value her as she now must (learn to) value herself.
These songs will resonate with those who appreciate Debra Lyn’s artistry and the sentiments of these lyrics, especially if they identify with the situations portrayed in these songs.
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