I discovered Margaret Glaspy by way of her Tiny Desk concert six years ago. She’d just released her debut record, “Emotion and Math”, in 2016 and was establishing herself as one of the most formidable guitar players much of what Glaspy was making back then. It was her guitar-playing—which was gravitational like an unshakable center-piece—that pulled me in; it was her storytelling that convinced me to stick around. “Emotions and Math,” album Glaspy masterfully takes pop instrumentation and employs a raucous blues top coat. Glaspy spent a long while on the road, performing “Emotions and Math” for audiences across the globe.
“I’ve gotta get out of this tree, off of this limb,” she sings across the chorus of “Emotions and Math.” “I’m a woman acting like a kid, a skinny mess that’s breathless from telling you all the things that I’m gonna do.” On her second LP, “Devotion”, released in 2020, her lyricism got thwarted into focus in an even greater way, as she muted her guitar just a hair and turned aglow a distinctive, enchanting realm of synth-rock and piano-pop.
“Echo the Diamond” is a revelation from the hermetic roars of lead single and album opener “Act Natural” to the bare-bones, solemn and otherworldly “Memories,” Glaspy is circumventing doing too much by trusting her gut.
What comes of it is her best work yet, a monolithic reaction to and document of grief, love and an unbounding sense of self-actualization. “Echo the Diamond” is spiritual in that way, as it lets every moment arrive organically. Many of the songs we hear on the final cut are either first takes or rehearsals yet they sound divine and worn-in. “Echo the Diamond” was recorded in three days, though its impact will stretch much, much further than that.
The Fat Angel Sings 