Where the Darkness Goes

Not surprisingly, this solo album from one third of long-established Canadian folk-pop trio Po’Girl sounds not entirely dissimilar to Po’Girl, occupying a cosy niche somewhere in between the acoustic singer-songwriter pop of Norah Jones and the old-time sang froid of Gillian Welch.

The album comes closest to being affecting when it’s stripped down, when the production makes it sound as if you’re listening to Awna Teixeira singing and plucking in the same room. This works well on the first track, ‘Stand Tall’, with its sensual banjo frailing, and ‘Faden’, with muted and sparse acoustic guitar. The up-close-and-personal treatment brings a pathos to the performances, as if they’re being performed live in one take. ‘Minha Querida’ and ‘Little Piggy’ both benefit from a satisfyingly woozy accordion – the latter being a drunken country waltz, a little like Dolly Parton gone oom-pah. If you wanted to be generous you might say ‘Rest Your Mind’ recalled the Cowboy Junkies or Mazzy Star, but in truth it lacks the emotional punch of either.

That said, even when these songs are at their most engaging, they don’t really engage. Teixeira has a nice voice, but there’s a lot of this sort of thing about. Laura Veirs, Hurrah for the Riff Raff, and Anais Mitchell, to name a few, are all mining very similar seams of professionally sensitive-sounding folksy singer-songwriterdom. At the end of the day, there’s not very much here to distinguish Awna Teixeira from them.