The title should be a tip-off: South Carolinian (by way of New York City) Jennie Arnau seems to understand that being a young woman playing country-tinged folk music will inevitably draw comparisons to other titans in the genre. Chasing Giants is a perfect title for a record full of humility that also showcases a songwriter full of ambition, and one who is working with her burgeoning talent to carve some sort of space for her music.
Is it possible for someone to sound like both Gillian Welch and Taylor Swift? The two are considerably different artists, but similar in their standing as icons in their respective fields (traditional folk and country-pop, respectively). Throughout Chasing Giants, Arnau manages to split the difference between the two disparate singers with her vocals, and often within the span of a single line. Arnau certainly evokes Welch’s husky tone, and “Safe Tonight” is the kind of stately hymnal that Welch can churn out in her sleep. Though it lacks the kind of narrative momentum common in Welch’s songs for a more standard repetition of ambiance and the phrase “Lord, keep him safe tonight,” it’s a fitting tone for a song that comes off more as a prayer than an actual tune. And like Swift, Arnau takes an extended metaphor in “Bouncing Ball” to describe a relationship and manages to enliven the song with a hooky, heart-swellingly optimistic chorus full of lilting, girlish charm that overrides her vocal limitations.
Those vocal limitations don’t stop her from nicely letting loose on many tracks (not unlike Neko Case, though without her pipes), delightfully avoiding the post-Elliott Smith/Cat Power mumblings of much of indie-ish folk music. Arnau manages to better evoke Case in one more crucial respect, which becomes her biggest strength throughout the record—she has a gift for creating a casually tossed-off lyric that seems full of both wisdom (”Their broken hearts must someday mend, but that won’t guarantee they will ever love again” from “The Sparrow & The Gods”) and indelible beauty (”She glows in the sun till nothing is left but some mascara on” from “For The Winter”).
If only her lyrical prowess reared its head more often, or influenced her melodic sensibility. Because while Chasing Giants begins strong with the aforementioned songs (as well as the wonderful “Beautiful Life,” full of bluesy intonation as well as a breakdown featuring honest-to-God hand-claps substituting the drums), much of the second half sags with uninspired melodies and too-samey production. “Jack B. Nimble” starts with some nice sliding guitar work before settling into something far more soporific, only rousing slightly with a haphazard sing-along towards the end. Arnau trots out her open-throated bellowing in “Savior,” but for a song so seemingly declarative it sounds unconvincing—a whole lotta sound signifying nothing.
The album does pick up again at its close. “No Guarantees” is an often lovely grappling with one’s own limitations, while “The Sharp Things” seems to encapsulate both the strengths and weaknesses of Chasing Giants as a whole. The song begins mournful and quiet, Arnau sing-whispering the lyrics over a plaintive acoustic strum, and then the drums kick in, as does a meaty electric guitar, and Arnau repeats the same lyrics only this time she’s really kicking some ass, caterwauling as if her entire life depends on singing these words in exactly this way. There is real drama and real pain in her voice at this part of the song, suggesting an artist far greater than the sweet, humble moments that have previously charmed and in comparison seem too restrained, too banal. The song is sadly undercut by its title; for all the catharsis on offer, the song deserves a better, sharper phrase to refer to her pain than “the sharp things.” But that lyrical foible doesn’t undercut the way she sings “I swear I can feel my heart breaking/Watch me break” towards the end. So even if she states “I don’t think I can take these giants on my own” in the title track, her phrasing on the final line of the album suggest that maybe, one day, she will.