Written and recorded in the two weeks after the inauguration of Donald Trump and the Women's March that followed,
Be Here Now is both a call to action and a balm for unsteady times.
Laura Burhenn has never been one to mince words when it comes to politics, but this nine-track set never pretends to be anything but a 21st century protest album. Flush with the heated rhetoric of its time,
Burhenn grieves for her divided country and the loss of both
David Bowie and
Leonard Cohen on the pensive and nostalgia-driven "Golden Age," but there's a steeliness in her despair -- "My heart's full of love and all kinds of peace, but I think even I could punch a Nazi in the face." That search for equilibrium between resolve and empathy looms large on the album's rousing, gospel-tinged title cut, but even at its most militant -- the propulsive "Witch Wolf" is particularly seething --
Be Here Now never loses sight of the bigger picture. It's a fist and an open palm, but it certainly knows which side it's on.