photo courtesy of Lisa Bastoni

Album Review of Lisa Bastoni: How We Want to Live

Lisa Bastoni is well-known around New England as one of the region’s premier folk singer-songwriters. Naturally, awareness of her talent extends beyond the region’s boundaries, but we’re lucky to get to enjoy more of her performances than the rest of you. (Well, obviously not lately, but generally that’s true.) As such, it’s my pleasure to be able to share Lisa’s talents with you, to highlight them within the context of this album review.

Lisa is pretty straightforwardly folk, but you can tell she has plenty of other influences, which help give Lisa’s music the texture that allows them stand out from the crowd. (You know, the influences, plus her hard work and talent.) There’s a bit of blues in there, when necessary. Some old-fashioned country. A bit of bluegrass. And, even moreso when the song really calls for it, Lisa is able to tap into a rough-edged, hoarse vocal delivery that conveys earnestness and emotion.

image courtesy of Lisa Bastoni

Album-opener “Nearby” displays several of Lisa’s strengths. In the chorus of this catchy singer-songwriter fare, Lisa examines the past, dishing out life lessons as the song rises and falls, with emotion clearly driving her almost matter-of-fact, still somewhat wry delivery: “I was wasting time in all the wrong places. Sifting through a river of faces. I was busy looking at the stars in the sky. You were so nearby.”

Title track “How We Want to Live” adds a bit more twang and a steady pace, equal parts melancholy regret and thoughtful forethought. This song is driven largely by the appeal of Lisa’s voice and the delivery she has perfected to best suit it. It pulls the listener in, very clearly on this song and this album, likely even more in a live performance.

There are more soft spots in the vocals, portraying vulnerability, in “Silver Line.” This song has well-placed dips in its engaging rhythm and, at least after several listens, an overwhelming urge to sing along with “loving you is like falling down a silver line” before Lisa picks up the lyrical pace enough that it’ll take a lot more than the couple dozen listens I’ve given this album before I’m able to sing it with her.

There are life lessons – or, at least, a generalization of lessons learned and lessons observed – throughout this disc.  There’s kind of a nice trilogy mid-album. First, the tumultuous “Never Gone to You.” Then the ideal parent-daughter song of love, “Beautiful Girl.” And finally the uplifting recollections of “Take the Wheel”: “You could make me cry or make me laugh like an old love letter or a photograph. I needed you to take the wheel. Saying I love you isn’t even close to what I feel.”

Things get simultaneously jazzier and bluesier during the quirkily compelling, slow-moving “Dogs of New Orleans.” But then the pace picks up again with the cheerful, fiddle-driven ditty “Walk a Little Closer,” featuring the singalong-able: “It doesn’t make sense my dear. I just want to stay right here. Let me walk a little closer, closer to you.”

The penultimate track on the album is its sole cover, Lisa’s rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Workingman’s Blues #2.” Lisa digs out her grittiest, most heartfelt, moderately downtrodden vocal for the song’s verses, bringing the volume up just a hint to add the requisite vocal heft to the chorus.

The album closes with “Pocketful of Sighs,” a song that tells a complicated emotional picture, much like the entire album, introspective, recollective, and forward-looking all at once.

The album is so solid throughout that I have a hard time calling out favorites. Mine shift with each listen. It’s just a really strong listen beginning-to-end, and it showcases all of the elements that suggest Lisa’s performances would be a special treat, especially in a cozy coffeeshop, but also suggesting that her raspy, intimate vocals could make a large theater feel like a living room, as well. She’s one of Boston’s best folk-based singer-songwriters, and How We Want to Live lives up to those lofty expectations.

Looking Ahead

The very top of Lisa’s website is where the tour dates would be listed if there were any right now. (Hopefully soon.) The “Events” tab of Lisa’s Facebook page actually does list an upcoming show: Saturday, April 2, 2022, at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Duxbury MA, with Danielle Miraglia and Monica Rizzio. Assuming that date stands a year from now, it’ll be a barnburner of a show.

Lisa has another album planned for release later this year. Watch for it. Here’s hoping it arrives on schedule!