the 31 best of 2008 – 20: Rachael Yamagata – Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart

What a breakup record this is!! On Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart, Rachael is musically letting blood from an aching, burning heart, and on this double album, she has made an amazing piece of painful, but beautiful music. Whispers of broken promises, mournful tales of love lost, and embittered warnings to stay weary of love permeate this album, and are all perfectly paired with Rachael’s beautifully acoustic and raw musical style. On some songs, you can practically feel the ache in the way she twists the guitar’s strings to force out the chords, and the accompanying vocals only strengthen the perception that this woman has endured some emotional pain. It isn’t often that emotion is so perfectly expressed in song, so to hear Rachael master it so beautifully is chill inducing at times.

There are many, many amazing songs on this album, and some are epic; like What If I Leave, a song that just jars me to the core. It’s a simple question that she ponders throughout the song, but the way in which it is coupled with the aching cello that backs her ponderous guitar picking, makes it so real and raw that it is just breath taking. Rachael has been a bit more rock and roll in the past, and with this record, she is only proving that she more than comfortable with her softer, more stripped down side as well. She isn’t afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve, and to show you that she bled to get here. Despite the overarching theme of despair, she does offer some glimmer of hope in love, in amazingly beautiful songs like Duet, where she is joined by Ray LaMontagne on one of the most beautiful collaborations of the year. That song is just everything that is beautiful about music.

After being subdued and lulled into a sense of heartbreak with Elephants, Rachael really turns up the dial on the second CD, Teeth Sinking Into Heart, and as the name implies, she really plunges the knife in deep. On this second CD, she has physically separated the ache from the anger (in making it a separate CD), and shows a side of her that indicates that she might have been burned, but she isn’t going to take it lying down. Rachael takes us through the stages of break up throughout the course of this album, and the result is an amazing set of songs that range in emotion and intimacy, but do so beautifully throughout. I will say that I liked Rachael before, but after hearing Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart,that I just might love her now; this album is massive and is full of emotive tracks that really encapsulate love and loss. As much as I love her softer, more acoustic stuff, she loses me a little with the harder stuff (what can I say, I am a softy); hence why this isn’t a 5 star album for me. That being said, I can definitely admit that this album is damn near perfect, and there isn’t anything bad that can be said about it.

Sparkle Factor:
Standouts: What If I Leave [audio:http://www.duanemoody.com/audio/fsf_1024_rachaelyamagata-whatifileave.mp3]
Elephants, Duet, Faster.