Whether as a featured vocalist for Massive Attack or front woman to the Americana outfit Phantom Limb, Yola Carter has been a low-key presence on the music scene for a couple of decades now. The impression you get now that she has fully burst onto the scene is that in those years, she quietly readied herself for the spotlight and always held a little something back for the day it arrived. How else do you explain a full force gale like this? She does not come across like a singer who naturally sits in the background, this is a woman with a commanding authority when she grabs the microphone and a hard-to-dent conviction in the words she imparts. She shouts without bawling, it is a no bullshit approach, the kind that only comes from a true voice with a vision singing from the heart. And even though this is in fact her second solo LP release, I find myself comparing it to something like the first George Harrison solo album. It is that magical moment when an artist who has previously jostled to find their space, finally finds a footing, turns on the tap and watches the music come flooding on down.

I stop short of calling ‘Stand For Myself’ one of the outstanding Soul albums of 2021 because, musically, it is so much more than that. Yola has explained in interviews how she simply grew up loving music; music that she heard on the radio, music she found in her mother’s record collection, whatever spoke to her emotionally she soaked it all up. It has resulted in this, an album that is a mesmerizing mixture of all her influences but not exactly like any of them. In doing so she has created that rare thing that not all artists can effectively realize; her own sound, this record introduces to the world the Yola sound. Impossible to pigeonhole and undeniably belonging to nobody else.

Her solo work truly began in 2019 with the Dan Auerbach produced ‘Walk Through Fire’. I did pay a little bit of attention to that album, mainly because something in the way it was marketed and in Yola’s image caught my attention, it looked like the kind of rootsy soul record I would be into. And it was indeed a good piece, but it did not register in the album of the year stakes or anything like that, maybe it lacked the unique identity so prevalent on this follow up? The Black Keys Auerbach has produced once more, but this time Yola’s own personality is a lot more visible. The creative period of lockdown facilitated this a little, affording the artist time to work out what she really wanted to do with her music. The array of collaborators and writing partners have also opened the possibilities. In addition to the producer there is also Natalie Hemby from the Highwomen, Ruby Amanfu who has performed in the backing singer department for Jack White as well as the quietly brilliant pop master Aaron Lee Tasjan.

The tune Tasjan contributed to, ‘Diamond Studded Shoes,’ is an early album stand out. As a rousing song it is shot with a rare realism. It is very much a call to arms in sound and style yet in anticipating if things would turn out right it emphatically answers, “we know it isn’t, we know it isn’t.” That alone typifies an underlying motivation throughout, in that Yola has viewed this album as a chance to get real, a chance to unleash the soul power at the heart of what she does while simultaneously refraining from presenting things in a one-dimensional way. Musically this leaves the door open for a multitude of influences to reveal themselves. Among the tracks there is everything from Brill Building pop craft, Sister Rosetta Tharpe style electric gospel, Black Keys riffage, Philadelphia soul lushness and even a hint of Freedom Singers folk protest poking through. Lyrically, what has poured onto the page is social, political, personal, lived and learned street wisdom. She is not just going to blindly say everything is going to be OK when she knows better but do not deny her right to hope for improvements and to stand up and fight for her beliefs.

Any album where claims for ‘best of the year’ status are made should, as a baseline requirement, be without any weak tracks or filler. ‘Stand For Myself’ definitively fits those criteria, from start to finish the songwriting standard is high and the range of emotional textures visited upon are dizzying. ‘Dancing Away In Tears’ is arguable the records smoothest soul moment, it has late night pop classic written all over it. By contrast to that tunes widescreen production, ‘If I Had To Do It All Again’ leaves sonic space for the catchy melody to breathe. The rhythm stutters, the bassline punches while the guitar executes savage knife slices, the effect is both dramatic and cool. ‘Whatever You Want’ has one of those low-hanging-fruit kind of melodies that sounds like it has been around forever. That fact alone invests the song with a self-assured strut. Finally, title track ‘Stand For Myself’ has undeniable sunrise chord progressions. It makes for music that incredibly evokes light overwhelming the darkness as Yola testifies “I used to feel nothing like you, now I’m alive, I’m alive!” For real!

Find a vinyl copy of ‘Stand For Myself’ here: https://www.discogs.com/release/19686967-Yola-Stand-For-Myself