With former mentor Dan Auerbach (you know, Black Keys) no longer on board as producer, album #3 for Mayfield sees her ditch the Southern Gothic for tougher sounds. There's more heavy guitar, more jangle, and even darker than her last album, which was scary enough. Mayfield's drawl is particularly effective on the hazy Party Drugs, bad news all around: "Party Drugs/I've got used to/without them I'm bored and tired." Other tracks are nasty and distorted, big punkish music from the band, but with Mayfield's vocals pushed over top, an unsettling sweetness especially given the bleak themes.
On her last one, Tell Me, it seemed Mayfield's role model was Tammy Wynette. Now, it's Nirvana. Even the love songs are filled with despair. Closer Seein' Starz, the lone gentle number, has her describing her relationship as a consuming passion that can't be escaped, for the worse: "You've got a stranglehold on my heart." Death images are all through the album; it opens, on Oblivious, with "I could kill with the power in my mind/but I'm a good humanitarian." Meanwhile, the guitars sound like they're being choked too. She's the toughest thing out of Ohio since Chrissie Hynde.
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