Singer-songwriter. Co-producer. Multi-instrumentalist. Lera Lynn juggles multiple roles on Resistor, an album that finds the Nashville transplant embellishing her Americana roots with a mix of spacey, left-of-center rock and experimental pop-noire.
Following the 2014 release of her critically-acclaimed sophomore release, The Avenues, Lynn spent 2015 in a creative whirlwind, kicking off the year with an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman and, months later, wrapping things up with a 39-date headlining fall tour. Along the way, she also played a role in shaping the dark direction of True Detective's second season, both appearing in the popular HBO series as a barroom singer and contributing a handful of original songs to the show's soundtrack. The response was overwhelming. True Detective's teaser trailer, which featured a clip of Lynn's "The Only Thing Worth Fighting For" (co-written with Rosanne Cash and T Bone Burnett), racked up more than 35 million views in a matter of months, giving Lynn the assurance that a wide audience did, indeed, exist for her brand of otherworldly music.
Resistor at once embraces the darker and more provocative sides of Lynn's songwriting. Moody and muscular, it pairs Lynn's voice — a warm, anchoring instrument that sweeps its way through all 10 songs — with the deep-seated rumble of baritone guitars, the atmospheric swirl of keyboards, and the gauze of her own double-tracked harmonies. Lynn and her co-producer, Joshua Grange, play nearly every instrument on the album, which was tracked during a series of spontaneous, experimental recording sessions in Nashville. While The Avenues couched Lynn's voice in layers of pedal steel and other folky instruments, Resistor takes a different approach, focusing on texture rather than twang.
From the percussive pulse of "Shape Shifter" to the greasy, slow-motion strut of "Little Ruby," Resistor finds Lynn in the captain's chair, confidently steering her ship into uncharted waters. "Drive," the album's most propulsive track, conjures up images of late-night road trips through the American desert, while songs like "Fade Into the Black" and "For the Last Time" sway and swoon, occupying the intersection where slow dances, lullabies and the soundtrack of David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" all connect. An independent album in every regard, Resistor was funded and created not by a big-budget label, but by a songwriter who continues to maintain complete control over her art. It's the sound Lera Lynn has always heard in her head, and never has that sound been more clearly presented than it is here.
“Resistor has this otherworldly quality to it, this darkness, this sense of atmosphere and space,” says Lynn. “We used a lot of baritone guitar, which at once roots and spears through everything, with the vocals floating above and around. There's a slow-burning intensity that at times sounds a little spooky. It's creepy and lovely."