REVIEWSMeg Baird, ‘Seasons on Earth’

7

• SPIN Rating:7 of 10

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Release Date: September 20, 2011
Label: Drag City

While best known for lending her haunting pipes to doom-folk troupe Espers, Meg Baird's quavering voice reveals itself as singularly lucid and enchanting on her solo work. So while a song on her second album is called "Beatles and the Stones" (it's actually a deft House of Love cover), Baird's true influences are U.K. folk queens like Shirley Collins and Sandy Denny. With an adept band supporting her -- including Sunburned Hand of the Man's Marc Orleans, who offers shimmering dobro and pedal steel on the sumptuous "Stars Climb Up the Vine" and the laid-back "Stream" -- her tender songcraft grows stronger.