MINDY SMITH Long Island Shores (Vanguard)
“Long Island Shores” is the second album by a Nashville-based singer/songwriter blessed with a honeyed voice that oozes and slides gloriously over gently countrified songs spiked with just a hint of bluegrass (it’s the banjos). It’s a sumptuous listen, the impeccably crafted material immaculately produced, with unobtrusive cameos from the likes of Buddy Miller, Bryan Sutton and Beth Nielson Chapman, who co-writes “Edge Of Love”.
The ambient backwash behind “Tennessee” harks back to Scott Litt’s work with R.E.M., or any number of Eno/Lanois productions, and the percussive thumps that drive “You Just Forgot” patrol a huge acoustic. “You Know I Love You Baby” is nudged, ever so gently, in a jazzier direction, and the title track’s folksy nostalgia comes across as a luxuriously upholstered “Hickory Wind”. Arguably the album’s highlight, “What If The World Stops Turning”, a duet with Buddy Miller, is a delicious bundle of easygoing romance, woven together by a whistling synth line.
“Long Island Shores” doesn’t trade in shocks or surprises, but it’s a lovingly assembled escapist listen, as gentle and honest as it is sophisticated.