New Music Critique: Lockwood Barr

Expert players and pristine production give Lockwood Barr's naturally appealing voice a perfect platform and plenty of sonic space to make her tracks come alive. It also helps that she’s a thoughtful, probing lyricist who invests her heartbreaking material with intrigue, as in the wistful “Forgotten How to Cry.” She gets into blues-rock on “Starve You Out of My Heart,” where her guitarist’s filthy-dirty distortion bristles with the song’s underlying anger. Barr fares best on “Silent Hearted,” with its rustic banjo and mandolin. Ultimately, it would be nice to hear more dimension in her singing. We recommend she exaggerate her vowels and consonants and step up to be a more commanding presence at the mic.