Although Common Holly’s sophomore album, “When I say to you Black Lightning”, is engaging from its very opening notes, its thesis statement doesn’t arrive until four songs in: “I think we’ve been measured out for pain since birth,” Brigitte Naggar sings on the woodwind-flanked folk rumination “Measured”.
The album, a thrilling experiment in shattering the boundaries between folk, rock and occasionally punk, examines the human capacity to receive, cope with and deliver trauma. A huge leap from Naggar’s 2017 debut, Playing House, Black Lightning is rife with minimally detailed yet fully rendered character sketches, and Naggar’s deftness at seamlessly weaving dissonant guitar lines into her riveting stories elevates her music well above much of the crowded folk-adjacent field.
“When I say to you Black Lightning” out October 18th. This project is funded in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters.
The Fat Angel Sings 