Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
How we recover from trauma is often a solo expedition, one that is not easy, indeed it is one of a road through deserts of introspection and empty isles of service stations, where the gas and momentum are out of our price range and the point on the map in which we are aiming for is on a part of the map that has been folded, creased, crumpled in anguish far too many times to make sense the solitary driver as they increasingly look for stop and help signs along the bittering highway.
In the fire though that is created by the burning tyres, the smoke that leads the seeker of healing to a place where they can be Baptized By The Blaze, we find we can start to withstand fury, and utilise it, shape it, mould the very fibres of its rage into something determined, into art that soothes, if not ourselves, then at least others who follow the tyre marks and deep ruts of brakes and the memory of squealing constraint and give them hope in the face of the blaze.
For India Ramey, the sense of trauma’s hopeful healing is a strong presence in her brand-new album, Baptized By The Blaze, and the empathy released, and rejoined by the musician, especially on the back of the her own revelation the day after her previous album, Shallow Graves was released, the purpose, the pushing back against drama, becomes clear; it is more than art, it becomes personal, it becomes the phoenix that is reborn in the fire of other’s pursuit of damnation and a saviour of the forgotten and the sensitively endowed.
The pledges of undisguised truth that silky wrap their belief around the listener’s heart are encapsulated and framed by songs such as She Ain’t Never Coming Home, Down For The Count, Never Going Back, Go On Git, Piece Of Mind, and the album title track of Baptized By The Blaze, the value of the piece is to be praised for its fortitude and almost unrepentant continuing Gothic outlook.
From the shallow graves to the bonfire of other’s vanities, the cremation of damage spoken in other’s names, India Ramey’s lyrics hit home with a deep dagger to the heart, but one that aims to save, and as in every baptism what takes place is a ritual of honour, promises to be kept in the face of salvation, even rebirth.
A marvellously cool recording, delivered by a woman with her hands firmly on the wheel in the face of the intense smouldering event she has put out with faith in her own ability and truth.
India Ramey’s Baptized By The Blaze is out now and available from Mule Kick Records.
Ian D. Hall