What we have here is a Failer who communicates Starting with her debut Failer, Kathleen Edwards, the Canadian queen of Americana, has set herself apart. She regularly brings new depth to ballads of everyday people making poor choices or just trying to dig themselves out. Edwards' recent third album Asking for Flowers is a significant step forward. "It was the first time I ever made a record where I basically started from song number one, which was a little bit of a daunting thing," she tells LEO. The results include introspective moments of emotional perspective but also some gripping, visceral details. One song about Edwards' father contains a jarring verse about a cat that was accidentally shot and wandered off despite a hideous wound. "There are some nights when people laugh when I sing that line, and there are some nights where there's this dead silence and people gasp in shock. But that's a story that my dad conveyed to me, and that's how I remembered it. "I like songs that use words that you don't expect or imagery that's kind of unexpected but easy to visualize. There are certain times where it's graphic or gross or it's strange — but that's the way it is. There are people who write about dry-humping on the dance floor or going down on somebody, and they basically find the right language to process that, and I take a certain angle where my subject matter's different, but my descriptions are as visual or as real." Clearly, Edwards is making the most of the opportunity to be an honest chronicler. Although she'll passionately stare down the demands of an "Oil Man's War," she's not overtly political. "I started touring in the fall of 2002 with Richard Buckner, and we were reading Noam Chomsky's '9-11.' It was pretty intense, a very crazy time to be traveling all different parts of America. We ended up in the South during the breakout of the Iraq War. As a Canadian... We obviously were not going to be participating in that as a nation, and I definitely kept my mouth shut, because I was thinking that it wasn't my place. And I have my own opinions, and I kinda like the idea that they're private." T.E. Lyons The Louisville Eccentric Observer				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews