Arizona-born seventeen-year-old Birdie Nichols will be a force in the music world for years to come. The sort of self-possession and innate talent required to produce an album like Into the West, at her age, ensures that she has a long road ahead of her. It’s a nine-song collection that reveals an extended range of her talents and the outstanding production defining each of the tracks help highlight her abundant gifts. There isn’t a dud among Into the West’s running order. It’s an unusual album, as well, thanks to the faint conceptual trappings driving the nine tracks. It’s bursting with the language of the American West, revamped and relevant for modern listeners, and it’s a further testament to her talents that Nichols never loses her listeners. It’s never obscure.
Leading off with the title song is an assertive move. However, it justifies her obvious self-confidence. “Into the West” is a handful of things wrapped up in one track. Two of its most prominent characteristics are the verbal firepower that it brings to the table, and Nichols’ adroit handling of the material. Her vocal chops are second. Nichols deftly navigates her way through each of the verses, never putting a foot wrong, and bringing an invigorating live quality to the track’s demanding phrasing. “Tough as Diamonds” presents another side of her talents as it is much more oriented in a pop direction, but it still echoes with personal stakes. She certainly throws herself into the tune with a full heart and you can hear her commitment in every line.
She sustains the album’s early momentum with the rich and completely satisfying “Blue Lightning Ambush”. It has a light folkie vibe, a feeling born out by the album’s bonus acoustic redo of the same song, but Nichols and her collaborators adorn it wisely rather than pasting ill-suited instrumentation into the arrangement. The songwriting gives another example of Nichols’ close relationship with the material influencing its language. The smattering of special effects opening the track, lightning, is a welcome touch.
“The Dutchman’s Mine” is one of the strongest examples of how well Nichols and her musical partners invoke the imagery and feel of the American West within a personal and, most importantly, modern context. Nichols steeps the song’s supporting narrative in many of the expected tropes, but she delivers it with such verve that it involves listeners from the outset. The brisk tempo that she and the supporting musicians adopt gives added sweep to the performance. “No Cattle Kind of Cowboy” has rural charms quite fitting for this sometimes biting reflection on affairs of the heart. It also ranks as one of Nichols’ best vocal performances.
The single “Desert Lilies Blooming” makes its case for being a single release with one listen. The chorus is especially gripping and carries much of the day for this song. Her finale “Golden Fields of the Sun” is rich with unexpected poetic imagery that doesn’t distract from perhaps the album’s best example of solid storytelling. It’s a wonderful mix of material defining Birdie Nichols’ Into the West and bodes well for her future.
Mindy McCall
