MENTAL

Bay Area singer-songwriter Sarah Bethe NelsonAEs multiple albums of balladry and pop chart an emotional wave of the multifarious and sometimes tumultuous changes of the areaAEs landscape. Her latest is no exception. Enter Mental Picture, a collection of aftershock spectral tunes ghosting in the aura of the recent age, spinning out from the contradictions of NelsonAEs steely reserve and melancholy fragility. If past efforts highlighted a certain zeal for the times, Mental Picture, while no less resolute in its approbation of the charms of this particular wasteland, definitely adds the haunt of eyes that have seen a grimness and dared to wink back at it. Think later Townes Van Zandt self-deprecation jolted through the afterglow of Stoned And Dethroned horizon-watching.'