Outside Our Gates

On her third album, 2008’s Outside Our Gates, Athens, Georgia singer-songwriter Liz Durrett continues to search through a vague, murky landscape for moments of splendor and contentment. Her arrangements are seemingly sparse, yet she employs a great many instruments that often quietly weave unassumingly through the songs, building and releasing tension without ever turning grandiose. There’s a gentle trickle laced throughout “In the Eaves,” as cello, piano, xylophone, and acoustic guitar combine for great effect. Durrett’s soothing voice takes on several different modes, and she often double-tracks her vocals for powerful results. “Wild As Them (A Memorial)” expresses a daydream, while ‘We Build Bridges” has a child-like hymn quality to its near ethereal beauty. Elsewhere, she strips down to a bare confession where her raw emotion, still kept mindfully restrained, adds to the minimalist quality of the often elliptical, often imagistic lyrics (“Lost Hiker”). The orchestration turns tougher for “All of Them All,” building towards a threatening chaos. “Always Signs” visits the percussive menace of a skewered Tom Waits production. Durrett’s capable of pulling in many different directions and still making it work for her.