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London-born, Georgia-dwelling Holly Golightly (not a pseudonym—her mother was a Breakfast at Tiffany’s fan) has made some 30 albums in various incarnations. No Help Coming is the fourth with her strychnine-voiced, multi-instrumentalist Texas-bred partner known as Lawyer Dave. Listeners will note a split personality herein: sometimes the arrangements are shambling, deceptively sloppy sounding DIY affairs, with a raw, tinny room ambience on the vocals and guitars; Holly and the Lawyer drawl their bluesy way through wild-eyed original stompers (“under Arrest”); thudding, malevolent vows (“The Rest of Your Life”); and spare, howling, rustic blues of a threatening nature (“The Whole Day Long”). Other, more romantic tunes reach for a kind of girl-group pop grandeur, with Holly’s double-tracked voice on “The Only One” conjuring memories of everyone from Joanie Sommers to the Shangri- Las’ Mary Weiss to the gals in Talulah Gosh, with a touch of Barbara Lynn in the chorus. In her beautiful performance on “River of Tears” she applies those same textures to a haunting, hymn-like backwoods heartbreaker—and the sound on these tracks is fuller, richer, and more consciously shaped than on the upbeat tunes. Whether lo-fi or hi the sonics serve the musical purposes well.
By David McGee
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