Artist: Maria Taylor
Album: 11:11
Label: Saddle Creek
Tracks: 10
Running Time: 40 minutes

Maria Taylor delivers her songs with a wistful soft-focus melancholy that could easily fold in to the wallpaper of your life if you just stop.

Better known by indie rock fans as one half of Azure Ray and a regular conspirator alongside Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst who turns up on this album, 11:11 is Taylor’s first solo release.
There’s no wild career changing move here, she ain’t playing metal. 11:11 sounds like Azure Ray with more instrumentation and less harmony but the harmony still roars over any of the instruments.

Taylor is always reasonable, never stroppy or illogical – hers is a grace learnt at good cost rather than one added synthetically.

On Song Beneath The Song the cheap synth of Azure Ray’s last album has swollen significantly but not for any improvement, when Oberst joins to warble ‘it’s not a love, it’s not a love song’ you can’t help but wish it was.
There’s the ham fisted disco-folk of One for the Shareholder but 11:11 survives thanks mostly to the down-home country of Speak Easy, resplendent in banjo and Taylor’s open, soothing voice.