What the Flood Leaves Behind is singer/songwriter Amy Helm's third solo album. She recorded it at Levon Helm Studios (aka The Barn) in Woodstock, New York, where she cut 2015's Didn't It Rain. Helm grew up in and around the wooden studio, singing in countless Midnight Ramble Sessions that she helped produce. After time spent living in New York City and Los Angeles, she now lives near The Barn, a place of solace, shelter, and creativity that she calls a "temple of music." In these wild, dangerous times, who doesn't need such a place?
Josh Kaufman produced the record, and he contributed piano, guitar, and mandolin. Kaufman surrounds her with a sympathetic cast of players, while Helm plays mandolin, piano, and drums. Opener "Verse 23" was written for her by Hiss Golden Messenger's M.C. Taylor. It emerges from a simply strummed mandolin, guitars, and a bass drum. Helm's voice unfurls slowly but is full-throated, like a soul singer. She entwines gospel, folk, and country in her delivery: "You can have some of mine/for as long as it takes/What the flood leaves behind/Is what we've got to make." The guitars buoy her vocal and she rolls over and through that lyric. "Breathing," co-written with JT Nero, employs a choogling organ and horns playing strolling, bluesy R&B, as she offers empathy and support to a shattered beloved. "Cotton and the Cane," co-written with Mary Gauthier, is an unflinchingly honest midtempo ballad fueled by a graceful B-3. In the lyric, Helm offers love and eternal respect to family and ancestors, living and dead, despite shortcomings and addictions; she sings with unwavering devotion -- even the line "Heroin, I'm locked out again" is offered as a circumstantial fact rather than a judgment. She follows it immediately with Daniel Norgren's soaring "Are We Running Out of Love," framed by mandolins, drums, and guitars. Its ache and reflection are merely building blocks in her plea for healing and tolerance. The shambolic Southern garage rocker "Sweet Mama" sounds like Helm backed by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. "Calling Home" digs back into the country soul bag, as guitars, organ, drums, and horns shuffle around Helm, who calls for her dad's hand to guide her home in the middle of a long, lonesome dark night of the soul. "Carry It Alone" is a gentle, fingerpicked lament offered after a broken relationship. Helm digs into each line, openly revealing her protagonist's doubt, pain, and longing. Closer "Renegade Heart," co-written with Taylor and Elizabeth Ziman, leans her vocal into a gospel piano to anchor the song's poetic lyric. She offers "You're someone worth loving/You beautiful heart" before ethereal horns flow in from the margins underscoring the truth and conviction in her words as she repeats the last phrase and carries out the record. What the Flood Leaves Behind is free of artifice, its rootsy warm sound buoys this intimate homecoming by presenting the full scope of Helm's prodigious gifts as a singer, songwriter, interpreter, collaborator, and artist, making it a timeless Americana masterpiece.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo