The Wake

Mason Jennings is from Minnesota, and it shows. In his latest album, Use Your Voice, the rustic singer-songwriter serves up ten tracks of northern living, Dylan-style. Like the prophetic folk-rocker before him, Jennings basks in the simplicity of song. Much of the album features only Jennings’ gutsy acoustic guitar and harmonica, backed by a subdued drum and bass rhythm section. Fortunately for Jennings, his songs are able to hold up to such sparse instrumentation. Songs like “Crown” and “Fourteen Pictures” stab at the heart like an adrenaline needle, injecting it with the tortures of love and loss. Others, such as “Empire Builder” and “Keepin’ It Real” highlight Jennings’ Anglo-folk-funk aspirations. Though Jennings’ voice seems to purposefully replicate Dylan’s coarse crooning, who can blame him? After all, Jennings knows he’s a Minnesotan, and, like Dylan, his voice reflects the rustic beauty of the state’s cold winters, rail lines and rural living. Fittingly, included on Voice is “The Ballad of Paul and Sheila,” a solemn reminder of the death of Minnesota’s most beloved public figure, the late Senator Paul Wellstone. Unquestionably, Use Your Voice permeates with a Minnesota-mentality, but in this age-in-music, it’s refreshing to hear an artist possessed by such a strong sense of personal identity.