Kristin Diable is a singer-songwriter whose voice writes her autobiography. In her unabashed delivery, she’s got the ambition and self-awareness of a New Yorker, testament to the years she spent there as a young adult making contacts and a name for herself in the music industry. In the rhythm behind her and the twang of her long vowels, she’s got the easy, yeah-you-right swagger of her Louisiana roots. At the soundboard of producer Dave Cobb, her bluesy Southern rock, largely unadorned on prior releases with her band The City, gets the slick ’70s-schooled Nashville sound for which it was meant, she’s got a rollicking new album titled, “Create Your Own Mythology”.
Kristin Diable has the same grit lining her throat that Amy Winehouse had, but sings from a place of levity that Winehouse never found. “Hold Steady” and “Bird On A Wire,” two of the album’s moodier numbers, are lyrically dark and lonely, but Diable’s vocals give them empowering buoyancy. With that much heft behind her holler, she might sing herself a sad song to get through the night, but clearly hasn’t given her heart over to heartbreak. “Create Your Own Mythology” traverses bluer skies in the beachy “Driving In Your Car” and affirming “Make The Most,” and reaches transcendence in “Time Will Wait,” a tambourine-bolstered barn-burner.
Almost as important as the music on Create Your Own Mythology, though, is its title. What better name could there possibly be, coming from a singer with roots in two uniquely mythological American cities, as she casts wide the net of her life, its visions and origins, and seeks to create something of her own?
Kristin Diable has been exploring freedom and choice in her music ever since she picked up an open mic at a lounge in Baton Rouge and stunned the audience into silence. She rode that vibe, away to New York and then back to her native Louisiana like a storm front, one that shook New Orleans.
The Fat Angel Sings 