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Libby Johnson
Annabella (Wrong)
By: Scott D. Lewis
 The kids won?t believe it, but there are certain advantages in getting
older. One of the biggest is having the wisdom and confidence to move
through the world softly and calmly, but by no means meekly. Libby
Johnson seems to have learned this. While the band she lead with her
sister Carrie, 22 Brides, tended to jerk from folk to rock, as a solo
artist, Johnson is much more sedate, yet more focused and sharp.
Annabella is a seamless series of small stories, most of which are sad
yet sweet, and many of them sound like old friends within a couple of
listens. Opener ?Don?t Mean You Lost Your Love,? with its hazy, watery
guitars and sedate piano arrives like a fog and is just as easy to get
lost in. Johnson?s slightly lazy, worn and dreamy voice suits the
sounds and there something about the way she roughly purrs the title
line in couplets that affixes it to the brain. She wins again with the
bluesy swagger of the album?s title track and follows it up with gentle
and groovy piece of pop-rock that brings the greatness of Mary?s Danish
to mind. Three tracks in and she?s left packs of competing albums in
the dust. But wait, there?s more. Another doubled-up title line serves
as anchor for ?Good to Go,? a curiously addictive bit of adult pop that
finds the perfect balance point between hope and sorrow. Building steam
with increasing vocal intensity and spot-on drumming from Steve Jordan,
?Undone? is sew up tight while the following track pulls the pace way
back with Johnson?s expressive piano playing and a sound that gets
fuzzily polished up like an Azure Ray track. ?Mi La Vie? gets bluesy
but relaxed, the soulful ?Rain? borrows from Dylan while gently
wrestling with the topics of war and love and Annabella closes with the
upbeat but slightly generic ?Indelible Mark,? from the film ?Trust the
Man.? Like most worthy things, Annabella is an album whose strength and
beauty arrives in steady strides.
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