Kate Lynne Logan Releases “Sleeping Giants” LP

With a bit of pop/rock songcraft helping to establish her creative identity as a songwriter, there’s something familiar and accessible about the music singer/songwriter Kate Lynne Logan has been recording over the years, and you needn’t look much further than her album Sleeping Giants to understand what I’m talking about.

URL: http://www.katelynnelogan.com/

While her seminal release Echoes definitely set forth a good standard for her sound, I don’t think it was until Logan recorded songs like the casual “You’re the One,” “Giving up on You,” “Let You Run,” and “Better Life” that she started to come across as her own artist. Her debts to the folk revival of the 1990s are less evident in this latter LP, with Sleeping Giants showing off a multifaceted approach to melodicism and lyrics the same that could be described as rejectionist of the substandard conceptualism that a lot of indie players have embraced in the past ten years. This is neither a hipster sound nor a straight throwback; it’s the delicately and diversely-woven fabric of a true storyteller, and to understand her artistry at its most refined, you need to hear this album for yourself. 

Producer Kevin Veatch puts a good spin on otherwise overly straightforward hooks ala “Burn It Down,” “Something Good,” and “Let You Run,” and his charismatic mixing and instrumental work are arguably as strong as they were in Echoes‘ best songs, such as “Walkin’ the World,” “Secret,” and “River & the Rain.”

There’s an elegance to the arranging that falls into place perfectly when Kate Lynne Logan is in charge of giving up the lyrics in songs like “Stranger” and “Canyon,” both of which could make just as great a pair of singles as “River & the Rain” was some six years ago. There’s no doubt in my mind that Logan was intent on giving as much of herself over to the medium as possible with Sleeping Giants, and it’s obvious just in analyzing how little she’s holding back in “What It Means,” the record’s phenomenal closing number. If this is a taste of who she is when the filters are turned off, you can sign me up for a lot more of her work. 

APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/album/sleeping-giants/1397137342

I don’t believe Kate Lynne Logan has got nearly as much love from the press as her output is due, but that could change as more folks get into her sound in 2022, which is quickly becoming one of the more formidable years for the new singer/songwriter movement thus far. Her style fits in with a lot of up-and-coming players who are looking to align pastoral themes in their music with a more contemporary, carefree style of instrumental arranging, and if you’re a musician who has listened to Sleeping Giants, you know exactly what I’m talking about. This is a player who is on top of her artistry and what she ultimately wants to do with it both in and outside of the recording studio, and her harmonies are sounding exceptionally sweet this spring season. 

Mindy McCall