Twelve years ago, Katy Rea left her home in Texas for the glittering lights and untold promise of New York. There, she auditioned for television roles and theatre productions, occasionally landing a part and enjoying the fleeting, intoxicating pull of “success.” But she inevitably got caught up in the other side of the age-old story as, lubricated by alcohol and an attraction to what she describes as “those who couldn’t love well,” her life in the city became something of an unsteady dream.
During this period, Rea had one solace—songwriting. She would come home to her guitar late at night and play along to the New York’s nocturnal rhythms, writing songs to the ruckus of wailing sirens and the night-time sounds of strangers on the street. Eventually these tracks became Katy Rea’s debut album, The Urge That Saves You, a collection of songs that explores her life not directly but through imagined characters and metaphorical stories that feel something like modern fables.
Nowhere is this clearer than on ‘Floods in Houston’, a taut, tense song which sees Rea draw on her mother’s teenage years in Texas. It centres on Jessica, a livewire female figure in a world of difficult men (Daddy and his temper, Brother haunted by war in Vietnam). The climax sees Jessica break a bottle and run at a group of “mean cowboys” who are beating up a boy in pink clothes, almost hoping for a chance to use it. Jessica is not Katy, nor Katy Jessica, but the song expresses deeply personal feelings regardless. A song about female rage, the ever-present tension that sits below the surface, waiting to spike into action or violence. A feeling that women face everywhere, but that Rea associates most particularly with Texas. “When it rains, it pours,” she describes. “The creeping feeling of humidity in Houston lends to this feeling which I carry in myself.”
Two weeks before heading into the recording studio, Rea’s friend Joshua Jaeger (who plays drums on the album) challenged her with the idea that to find contentment, she would need to kick her habits. Knowing this to be true, she decided to quit drinking, a decision which gives the album an almost painful clarity. It’s as if a fog has lifted and Rea is able to reflect on the past, the present and the future with newfound intensity. This journey towards lucidity and the difficult decisions it can bring is captured in the rich slow burner ‘Say Goodbye (One More Time)’, a song Rea says is about “finding the strength to leave something that feels wonderful,” which grows from barely-there picked guitar into a velvety, full-bodied folk rock song complete with a cathartic climax.
Katy Rea describes her sound as “empath rock”, the perfect illustration of her attentive, introspective style. She is the album’s passionate, mercurial centre point, moving from quiet murmurs to dramatic wails. Shades of folk sit side by side with crashing percussion and moody psychedelia, creating something that sounds both cinematic and intensely personal. The title track pairs sparse piano with answerphone-style vocals, while ‘Lord Try’ shifts tempo with languid ease and ‘We Don’t Believe’ comes thudding in with real weight, Rea displaying her full vocal range as her voice goes from trembling lulls to and howling peaks.
Lots of tracks hold a sense of self-reflection and inspiration to change, to become something else. Rich and syrupy and built on beguiling, ephemeral melodies, ‘Happiness’ is a song about taking back control “When I was writing ‘Happiness’ I was looking for a kind home within myself,” Rea tells Under the Radar. “I was one of these people who gave tender guidance to friends but couldn’t follow my own advice. This song is about taking responsibility. And in a way it was a kind of premonition, the message came before I knew what I needed to be happy but now it is very clear.”
The album’s final track, lead single ‘We Come Back’, captures these themes in their most distilled form. Feeling like both a declaration of acceptance and something of an exorcism, it sees Rea come to terms with her past selves and resolve to let them go, to become someone new, someone better. “I learned that it isn’t boring to be kind to yourself,” she describes of the song, and really, of the album as a whole. “It opens your world. It takes a lot of forgiveness to gain self-respect.” It’s a powerful message, and a testament to the power of art and creativity in providing purpose and direction. In providing the urge that saves you.
The Urge That Saves You is out now and available via the Katy Rea Bandcamp page.