Annie & Rod Capps

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Capps has been writing songs since she was eleven, and the music on her older albums often had an appealing mixture of confession and sass. When she comes to the Ark on Friday, June 22, she'll have a new release, In This Town. I've heard a working version, and it's terrific. Capps has some great story songs — the title track quoted above, and "The Ring," a virtuoso effort about a woman who is sweeping up shattered glass in a chain store and spots a wedding ring in the debris. As her reflections unfold — "The trouble with hope is the way that it shatters" — they're periodically qualified by a little "sometimes, anyways" that makes the whole funny-sad set of images reverberate in the brain.

Capps also broadens her range on In This Town, probably under the influence of her Yellow Room Gang associates. Some of her new songs tackle big spiritual questions in the way that Krist does, and others have a bit of Whit Hill's quirky outlook. That's how you make a promising scene grow, and those who follow Michigan songwriting or just want to check some out should come on down to the Ark for Annie Capps's turn in the spotlight.

[Review published June 2007]