Laura Meade Unleashes Second Solo Album
The IZZ vocalist pushed through a trying 2020 to create a dazzling sophomore release.
Welcome to this week’s issue of Michael’s Record Collection. This week I want to tell you about an outstanding solo album by a member of one of my favorite not-as-well-known-as-they-should-be progressive rock bands, IZZ. Laura Meade has a great voice and her contributions to her band’s overall sound cannot be overstated. I spoke to Laura a couple of days ago and am happy to bring you the results of that conversation (including the full video of it below).
Before we get to that, I wanted to let you know that MRC has a brand new dedicated Twitter account that you can follow here.
It’s been three years since IZZ vocalist Laura Meade stepped out on her own and released her first full-length solo album, Remedium in May of 2018.
While three years isn’t an eternity between solo albums, new release The Most Dangerous Woman in America, which officially drops today on Doone Records, wasn’t planned for 2021.
Meade and her IZZ bandmates had plans for 2020 that were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent travel and gathering restrictions that we’ve all dealt with over the past year. The next solo album wasn’t on the immediate schedule but circumstances just kind of worked out for it to happen.
“This was such an unusual album, born from such an unusual time,” Meade said. “We didn’t have plans to do another album for me — maybe two years from now, maybe three — because we had a lot of stuff set up for IZZ in 2020, which ended up not happening. So, after the initial depression — and I don’t want to create anything, I don’t want to do anything — after that kind of passed, then it was such an organic thing.”
Meade and IZZ bassist John Galgano co-wrote the album but the collaboration was so close that Meade said the two sometimes struggled to recall who wrote which parts when listening back to it.
“It’s almost hard to piece it apart,” she said, “because John wrote lyrics and music, I wrote lyrics and music, and it just kind of came together.
“For Remedium I wrote everything. Everything was written before we even set foot in any kind of studio. This album’s so strange because we didn’t go into it with really any thoughts or any ideas at the beginning of what it would be. Ideas were flying around John’s head, my head, and we just said ‘let’s just get into the studio and kind of see what comes as we’re recording it, as we’re doing it.’ It appeared as we were doing it, which is totally unusual for me. That’s never happened before.”
So, who is the most dangerous woman in America?
“She is the forgotten woman whose story needs to be told,” Meade said, cagily. “And we hope we’re doing a good job of it.”
The Most Dangerous Woman in America is a 10-track album of recurring themes, lyrical passages, and thoughts. Meade preferred the term ‘thematic’ over ‘concept album.’
“The inspiration was specifically one woman’s story. It is so applicable to so many people,” Meade said. “Everyone has a story or knows a story of somebody who was silenced for speaking their truth or just completely forgotten by society for no reason. So we were going along with that thought, and then, as we were getting to the end, we still wanted to let people think what they will. Because I think that’s so beautiful about music in general, that you can bring yourself to the music. You tell you what it’s about and I think that’s amazing. But there is a specificity to it that is a driving force for me and John, and more perhaps will be revealed as we get further along.”
After a short, mood-setting opening piece (“On the Shores of the Seine”), the record consists of nine ‘proper’ songs. The first of those is the pulsating “Leaving.” Right away it’s obvious that this is not a sequel to Remedium. There’s an emphasis on electronic percussion and keyboard sounds. Meade said the instrumentation on the album was largely due to constraints of what they could do during the pandemic, but it also gives the album a fresh, modern sound and sets it apart from her first solo album.
This doesn’t sound like an IZZ album — nor should IZZ fans expect it to, given that it’s a Meade solo album — but there are IZZ-isms throughout. Notably, IZZ keyboardist Tom Galgano’s (who also mixed this album) fingerprints are easily identifiable at various places throughout the record, such as around the 2:15 mark of “Leaving.”
The Galgano brothers aren’t the only IZZ members to play on the album. Brian Coralian plays V-drums as well. Other IZZ members, Greg DiMiceli (drums) and Paul Bremner (guitars) weren’t available.
The intriguing “Burned at the Stake” follows “Leaving” and features some wonderful lyrical passages that Meade does recall that John wrote.
Can’t find quiet in a quiet place
The above line repeats like a frantic mantra of someone urgently seeking comfort and peace but who is unable to find a path to it. Another of my favorite lyrical passages occurs in this song with a twist of wordplay:
Burned at the stake, burned by mistake.
“Burned” features one of the first times on the album where Meade stretches out vocally. Where historically she has lent an ethereal or breathy vocal style to IZZ songs and to her own work, she shows off some power with her voice on this album — not throughout, but definitely in some spots. This part of her range was something unlocked in part with the help of a new vocal coach, Mia Milan, who is based in California.
“I found a new voice teacher. I was like ‘I think I could use just a refresh, a jumpstart, and I need a new vocal coach to help me with that,’” Meade said. “I found the world’s most perfect vocal coach. I would do Zoom lessons with her. She really helped me to discover a new part of my voice that I was kind of scared of, that I never knew was there. The lower, stronger singing was completely new to me and frightening but fantastic to just explore.”
Meade said that Milan helped her work through specific vocal passages throughout the album when she was having difficulties.
Fourth track “Iconoclast” sounds more like Meade’s previous work than perhaps any other song on the album. A simple piano riff serves as most of the accompaniment to her vocals through much of the song, but it does build nicely at the end with some synthesizer, bass, and drums. It’s a softer type of song that we’ve heard Meade excel on many times before.
Another pulsating song, “The End of the Road in Hollywood” evokes images of a troubled actress and foreshadows a bad end, with more electronic beats and John’s bass providing the foundation, while a piano and some synth sounds fly over top. Meade sings in a lower register and splashes in some French. Thematically, Franco-centric references occur throughout the album, giving some clues to the original “most dangerous woman” who inspired the album.
To me, this evokes the story of Jean Seberg, the subject of a recent Amazon Studios film — which is backed up by Meade’s look on the cover and in the video for “Burned at the Stake” — but the French themes and album title originally pointed me (pre-Googling) toward Josephine Baker. “Burned at the Stake” evokes images of Joan of Arc, who was certainly silenced for telling her truth and had her remains thrown into the Seine, but she was also never anywhere near America, let alone the most dangerous woman in America. Regardless of whether it was Seberg, the original idea was expanded during the recording of the album to a wider view of the story of those who are oppressed and silenced.
“Doesn’t Change a Thing” is a bit of a head bobber, although musically it has a fairly sparse arrangement until the middle of the song, when Meade builds vocal layers in another quite IZZ-ish manner, which gets cut off by a slightly disconcerting-sounding electronically enhanced vocal line. A harpsichord-style keyboard section interplays with piano at the end.
The title track starts out with voices speaking French and since I don’t speak that language, I couldn’t tell you what it’s about. “The Most Dangerous Woman in America” is by far the longest track on the album at 8:18. This song features some of the earlier recurring lyrics from “Burned at the Stake” and some keyboard sounds that will be identifiable to IZZ fans. Like at the end of “Burned,” Meade shows some of her vocal range on this song, displaying her lower register and the strength in her voice, as well as her delicate side. I’ll cop to not liking this song much the first time I heard it, but of all the tracks on the album, it’s grown on me the most and reveals more on each listen.
“The Shape of Shock” is a fantastic title and turn of phrase and that line kicks off the song of the same name. Meade again shows off some of her newfound power singing lines like “I’m still there.” I had to ask her what the title phrase meant, but it was again something that John wrote.
“To me it means the way shock hits you, kind of the way it hits you in a visceral way,” Meade said. “Kind of the shape that you take. That’s my interpretation of it.”
“Forgive Me” is a track that starts off sounding a bit like it came from Steven Wilson’s sessions for The Future Bites. It’s got a sinister vibe and the lyrics and Meade’s vocals add to that feeling. Another marker pointing toward Seberg being the original subject of the album, the line “Forgive Me” was a in a note the actress left for her son. That note was found with her body.
The soft-opening “Tell Me, Love” is a short album closer that implores the listener “Don’t believe my biography, it’s just gossip, a ghost of me.” The song doesn’t stay soft and poignant, however, as it builds to a crescendo with some of Meade’s most powerful vocals on the album and fantastic keyboard contributions from Tom Galgano.
At 40 minutes, The Most Dangerous Woman in America doesn’t overstay its welcome and will have many listeners playing it again right after it ends. And they should. This is an album that reveals more layers and surprises on repeat listens, which is the hallmark of many great albums.
Meade said she is eager to perform these songs — likely as a full suite — when restrictions allow.
“It sort of begs to all be performed as a piece,” she said. “That’s the gig, right there.”
Meanwhile, there will be new IZZ music coming out before too long as well, although there is no exact timetable yet.
“There’s recording going on behind the scenes. There are definite steps being made for the next IZZ album,” Meade said.
Fans who are interested in buying the album from a vendor that maximizes the artist’s take, should purchase The Most Dangerous Woman in America at IZZ’s Bandcamp site, but it can be purchased in most of the usual online spots. It is available on CD, vinyl, or digitally.
Here is my complete interview with Laura: