Album Review: Sarah Julia, ‘The Fear That This is Real’
We have moments in our lives that radiate with pain or soothe with healing; there are times when we’re bereft – the loss of a loved one or the loss of love – and there are times when we rejoice for the fullness of our lives. In the midst of despair or hope, we often wonder if our momentary experience of devastation or well-being is indeed real. Sarah Julia, the Dutch sisters Sarah and Julia Nauta, explores the questions that accompany life through the songs on their debut album, ‘The Fear That This is Real.’
Swirling guitars, sonically reminiscent of the melody lines of Joni Mitchell’s “Coyote,” sweep us into the call and response vocals of the album’s opening track “Bigger Picture,” which features the sisters’ cascading vocals on the bridge. An ode to the futility of worrying about events or feelings we can’t control, the song asks us to “sit back/watch as it happens” in the bigger picture, for in the bigger picture why do all the many small frustrations of life matter.
The duo exchanges lead vocals amidst a sea of ethereal harmonies over shimmering beds of guitars and synths on “Touchdown,” an expression of yearning to find solid ground in the midst of turbulent air.
On “Going, Going, Gone,” the duo evokes, through a gorgeous rondo of spiraling and descending vocals, the emotional emptiness of a relationship and the recognition that fullness comes on from moving on.
Strident guitar strums open “Therapist’s Daughter,” a paean to the ragged give and take of a relationship, especially when one person feels that they are giving their hearts in helping the other heal, and the other simply walks away, never to be heard from again.
“Whatever It Takes (Break Your Heart)” sonically recalls The Roches’ early songs with their tongue-in-cheek defiance. The album closes with the haunting, Fairport Convention-like, “Wishing Stone.”
Sarah Julia’s ‘The Fear That This is Real’ showcases the duo’s atmospheric vocals and their ability to convey in exquisite fashion the jagged and poignant emotional ups and downs of life.
