Jenn Grant

Love, Inevitable

BY Laura StanleyPublished Jun 3, 2019

7
What does it feel like to be floating in the abyss of uncertainty? On her seventh record, Love, Inevitable, Jenn Grant suggests that living in this precarious state can feel light.
 
Love, Inevitable was written and recorded, as Grant told Exclaim!, during a time of "so much unknowing." Some of the album's tracks were written while she was undergoing fertility treatment, while others were penned in the exhausted haze of early pregnancy. While recording the album with producer Tucker Martine in Portland, OR, she felt her son kick for the first time. Despite the uncertainty that surrounded Grant, this record is soaked in hope and Grant, like she sings on "Bird At Midnight," is open to whatever comes her way: "Through the battles of my heart, I kept my love in an open jar."
 
The upbeat folk-pop arrangements on songs like "Raven" and "Favourite Daughter" are infectiously optimistic. Both songs lightly move with determination, as Grant stares with wonder at nature and feels inspired: "I wanna feel alive," she sings brightly on "Favourite Daughter." When Grant strays from guitar-centric folky songs to electronic-tinged pop, the mood shifts to one less comfy, but her resolution to find goodness remains and the mood maintains its breeziness.
 
On the standout track "Arizona," she battles twitchy electronic beats and repeats, "I'm gonna get stronger," and on the slow-burning "Lost in Our Wishes," Grant shakes off the tangled electronics and insists, "We've come so far and our story has begun."
 
Out from the whiney distorted guitar squeals at the end of "Sweet Grass," we hear Grant laughing. It's a brief moment but, like Love, Inevitable as a whole, it captures the joy that can come out of chaos.
(Independent)

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