“How can I still my mind when the world is so loud?” is the question Anna Elizabeth Laube asks herself on the spoken word closing track Welcome Back To The Wild Outside.
The answer possibly lies in the other songs on her record which are seemingly designed to quieten the loudness and to focus on mindful reflectiveness.
The Iowa born singer-songwriter’s latest collection covers themes of friendship, loyalty, family, perseverance, and the natural world. The chilled mood is one geared towards relaxation and optimism.
The 12 songs include five covers: a sparse arrangement of Taylor Swift’s It’s Nice To Have A Friend, Dylan’s Buckets Of Rain, The Beatles’ I Will, an instrumental piano meditation on Roy Orbison’s Crying and a version of Ben Harper’s How Could We Not Believe.
The positive affirmations in tunes like Love Is Everything and Beautiful Day blend with an iron resolve not to stray into negativity in Warrior (co-written with Katie Buchanan) in which she sings of Reaching to the sun and declares I won’t quit until I’m done.
