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This week’s back-and-forth on the RER has been accompanied by the new Laura Veirs album, July Flame. The ice and snow of the past few weeks has largely disappeared, and this rich, summery music seemed to bring a little warmth to the air.

With its electric guitars and rich sound pallette, the title track belies the simplicity of the rest of the album. Laura’s previous album Saltbreakers felt like a “band” record, with plenty of layers, vast electrification and a triumphal, full sound thanks to the production of Tucker Martine.

By contrast, July Flame is stripped back, and the songs benefit from it. You’d have to go back to 2003′s Troubled by the Fire to hear Laura Veirs songs in a similarly “simple” setting. The approach is epitomised by Carol Kaye, a tribute to the eponymous bassist, the “Everett, Washington girl” with “10,000 sessions” to her name – a song which, cannily, features no bass:

And on the occasions when the orchestration gets fancy it’s always groovy, rather than lush: the gorgeous Wide-Eyed and Legless is woven together with clever string arrangement, and Summer is the Champion fair stonks along (what’s that? a drum kit AND horns?).

Where Are You Driving and The Sun is King are as good songs as Laura has ever written. And what’s even better, she’s playing in Paris at the end of the month. It’s one show I really don’t want to miss.

Laura Veirs & The Hall of Flames / Old Believers / Cataldo
29 janvier 2009: 20h
Café de la Danse
5 Passage Louis-Phillippe 75011
Métro Bastille