Country music has always featured testosterone-fueled songs about pickup trucks and drinking. However, sometimes – through all that testosterone, you hear some songs about relationships from the female perspective, and you realize that they are stronger than any pickup. Such is the case with The Other Side by Maybe April.
In any creative endeavor, the artist tries to grab the attention of the audience immediately. Maybe April succeeds with the lyrics beginning of “Truth Is”: “The truth is I don’t think about you. I don’t see your face in every stranger on the street.” The melody is easygoing with minimal instrumentation featuring the mandolin and acoustic guitar that are accompanied by a subdued beat. The lyrics later in the song hit even harder than those at the beginning: “The truth is just a lie you tell yourself until it’s true.”
“Already Gone” is another song in which the band grabs the attention immediately. At first you hear some lonesome notes on the banjo. After a few lines, you hear the gut-punch lyrics, “I’m tired of being second-best to anything that gets you higher than I can.” Katy Dubois and Alaina Stacey really convey the ache in this song about a troubled relationship. This song is painfully beautiful.
The melodies throughout the album are reminiscent of the Dixie Chicks and Faith Hill, but what’s really noticeable is the harmony vocals between Katy Dubois and Alaina Stacey. In songs like “Need You Now” and “You Were My Young”, you realize that the harmony vocals – while recorded in a studio – would sound just as good if they were sung live around one microphone just like in bluegrass songs.
A wise person once advocated for kindness by saying “We’re all surviving something. That’s similar to the message in “Same Story, Different Scars”. The story in this song gives you vivid images from a man being fired and stopping for a drink before heading home to a mom whose 4-year-old asks if he can sleep with her only to steal the covers from her. This song is filled with powerful lyrics that are tied together with the lines, “We all fly. We all fall. We’re all same stories, different scars.”
This is an album filled with vivid stories, bright melodies, and harmonies that are sure to make you take note. Dubois and Stacey have a way of creating images that put you right into the story they’re telling. The Other Side will be available everywhere on August 9. Order your copy here.