Album Review – Emily Scott Robinson’s “Appalachia”

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Folk-Inspired Americana (#570.1) and Country Folk (#575) on the Country DDS.

What kind of towering power is music capable of? To bask in the audience of Emily Scott Robinson’s voice and songs, you feel like anything is possible through the marriage of words and melody. If only warring factions and fractious world leaders could be convinced to sit in the same room with this music, how petty their conflicts would seem, and how small they would feel for holding to them.

It’s hard to not slip into hyperbole when listening to Emily Scott Robinson. Her new album Appalachia doesn’t make it any easier on you. Despite previous Song of the Year accolades and Best Album contention, it’s this one that makes it difficult to impossible to resist believing in the awesome power of music, and of this particular artist. It’s a test of mettle and fortitude to not have to choke back tears, to not be transfixed and metamorphosized by the experience. Simply put, it’s difficult to impossible to argue life isn’t better on Earth due to this music.

Presented more in folk and Americana conventions than country ones, Emily Scott Robinson first flummoxes and overwhelms you with her otherworldly vibrato tone, and then completes the annihilation of your emotional walls with her writing. It’s really of no consequence how Robinson and producer Josh Kaufman choose to clothe these expressions, except to underscore how their curation and stewardship of these songs is exquisite. But in these circumstances, conversations on genre feel superfluous, and even calling it “music” seems to improperly couch what you experience while listening.

There does happen to be a country song on the album though. Called “Dirtbag Saloon,” it’s set in the rural Colorado mountain towns that Robinson has called home for many years, and where the inequitable wealth gap is perhaps most demonstrably pronounced in the United States. Along with all the other positive attributes one can assign to Appalachia, the timing of the delivery of these songs is sometimes goosebump-inducing. As this song was released, the rank and file of the Telluride Ski Resort where Robinson once lived (and Oprah and Dierks Bentley still do) we’re going on strike.


But compared to the other selections from the album, the specificity of a song like “Dirtbag Saloon” feels quaint. The opening song “Hymns for the Unholy” feels like a sacrament we are all in deep need of ingesting, even if the ‘GD’ jars a little. “The Time For Flowers” was the exact song this world needed at this exact moment. Ironically, she also recorded it in 2020 when it felt like it was needed then. “Bless It All” emphasizes the pseudo-religious immersion this album can elicit, however non-denominational.

Some songs deal in more practical subjects, but are ultimately just as touching. Addressing Alzheimer’s in songs has been fashionable for songwriters lately, because the emotional buttons are so easy to push. But you can put “Time Traveler” up there with the best in the series. “Cast Iron Heart” performed with John Paul White is a great love song for divorcees and older lovers. And “Sea of Ghosts” so eloquently encapsulates the experience of seeking and finding love, it haunts the soul well after its expiration.

Though it might be fair to charge Appalachia with being a folk record, the only overtly folky moment comes via “The Water Is Wide,” and even that comes very welcomed. Even the most hardened of hearts and those prone to cynical dispositions can and will find solace in this music if it’s given a sincere opportunity. Though the setting both spoken and unspoken throughout the album is mountainous Colorado, Robinson’s original home is in Appalachia and the Carolinas, which she shares her sympathy toward in the title track, inspired by the hurricane aftermath.

Some albums we measure against their peers of a given year. For others, it’s necessary to venture to the catalogs of other years to find comparable works. Emily Scott Robinson’s Appalachia is one of those albums, with the only question left to resolve being what its impact might be. But for those who venture to listen, the impact will be alleviation, gratefulness, and a renewed fortitude to face life’s challenges and the fears we have of what’s happening in the world to the point of feeling nothing short of transformational.

9.5/10

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