- Last decade, a group of American musicians formed what they called the Riotfolk collective – essentially a DIY record label/booking agency for political acoustic music. Among the folk-punk thrashers and earnest polemicists, one album stood out as something a bit different – Evan Greer’s music sounded roughly like what would happen were an anarchist folk singer assigned to soundtrack a Disney musical.
Ten years later, Evan Greer is a prominent political activist in the US, but has found time for a second album. A few things have changed in the intervening decade. The Riotfolk collective is no more, for one. A fairly significant transition in Evan’s personal life is hinted at in the album’s title of she/her/they/them – the artist’s now preferred gender pronouns.
Other changes crop up in the lyrics. “White guilt, freight trains and dumpsters; used to feel like revolution. Guess I’m learning how to organise.” This is a change in Evan’s outlook but could equally describe a shifting emphasis in American radical politics after some self-analysis in the face of Black Lives Matter and now Trump.
Even so, few of the songs are about politicians or movements for social change. It’s a record that takes on that old saying that the personal is political. A couple of songs reference Evan’s sexuality and gender transition, with mental health a closely linked issue also addressed.
There are exceptions – like Assimilation with its chant of “we don’t need gays in the military, we need militant gays”. Liberty is a Statue takes on the educational system, and Last iPhone is the kind of positive singalong that recalls the best moments of her last album.
Musically it still sounds like a cross between the folk club and the Broadway stage. This time there are also pastiches of different styles – country, pop punk, funky hip hop, blues, plus Confluence. That plays like some kind of folk-metal epic.
For those of us who were fans of Evan’s first album, it certainly is a pleasant surprise to get a follow up. In a way the two albums spaced so far apart provide a portrait of the changes a radical goes through – the beautiful yet naive optimism of songs like I Want Something replaced by lyrics detailing internal struggles for wholeness and mental health. “I wish it could be as easy as the pamphlets made it sound” Evan sings.
And yet that initial passion survives: expressed in broader ways than it once was. If we all must eventually come to the conclusion that folk songs alone won’t change the world, there at least remains the possibility that the world can change. Evan Greer’s music and activism reflect that she still holds on to this hope. The album ends with a big singalong Ya Estamos. Translating to “we have enough”, the lyrics promise “we’re already dancing, we’re already winning”.
- Andy Paine.