Jessica Lea Mayfield possesses a delicate singing voice that she likes to contrast with her crunching guitar riffs. For her new album Make My Head Sing..., she's working with drummer Matt Martin and her bassist, producer and husband Jesse Newport to create a roughed-up, often blues-based sound that lends her lyrics vehemence.
You can hear, in the midst of all this rock heaviness, the influence of the bluegrass band Mayfield was a part of when she was growing up. She sings with an unadorned plaintiveness that's very much in the tradition of bluegrass vocalizing. It's the opposite of a conversational style — Mayfield's singing implores, declaims, expresses yearning, hope and a lack of hope. Sometimes her voice and the melody achieve a shimmering beauty, the sound of music coming from far away, floating through your mind, as it does in "Standing in the Sun."
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