Kara Hesse Refuses to Pick a Side on Devil & the Dove

There is something appropriately contradictory about an album called Devil & the Dove. Kara Hesse’s latest record exists comfortably between opposing forces: grit and tenderness, grief and optimism, rock muscle and soul, holding on and finally knowing when to let go.

For Hesse, those contradictions aren’t a concept created after the fact. The Nashville-based artist spent five years making the album across Seattle and Nashville, and what began as a collection of songs she considered her strongest gradually started documenting a period of her life she hadn’t necessarily intended to put on record. Hesse has called the finished project both a love letter to the past and an “absolute rebirth and reset.” Pasted text

That history gives Devil & the Dove an appealing lack of polish in the emotional sense. This isn’t an album trying to tie every experience into a perfect bow. Its strength lies in allowing different versions of Hesse to occupy the same space.

Musically, that makes sense. Hesse calls what she does Americana Rock Soul, a description broad enough to accommodate a musical background that stretches from Aretha Franklin, Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt to Marcus King, Gary Clark Jr., Chris Stapleton and Grace Potter. Rather than planting a flag firmly in Americana, rock or soul, she borrows naturally from each. Pasted text

There is considerable experience behind that confidence. Hesse began writing songs at 14, studied at Berklee College of Music on a vocal scholarship and performed at Red Rocks Amphitheatre by age 22. She has since shared bills with B.B. King, Al Green, Buddy Guy and Steve Miller Band, while her songwriting has found its way onto television through CBS’ Scorpion and DirecTV’s You Me Her. Pasted text

But one of the more interesting developments on Devil & the Dove happened away from the microphone.

Hesse stepped more fully into the role of producer on the project, working closely with Nashville engineer Pat Lassiterwhile taking responsibility for the creative decisions herself. She has described that process as learning to trust her instincts and refusing to compromise the music simply to satisfy trends or other people’s expectations. Pasted text

You can hear that philosophy particularly clearly on “Vanity.”

Written with Greg Wilson during Hesse’s first Nashville co-write, the song originally moved toward a more accessible pop-country sound. Hesse ultimately decided it wasn’t serving the song, scrapped that direction and rebuilt it as something slower and more exposed, centered around gut-string guitar. Drummer Charlie Morgan, known for his work with Elton John and Olivia Newton-John, appears on the final recording. Pasted text

It was the right instinct for a song concerned with appearances.

“Vanity” examines the relationship between beauty and self-worth without pretending that vanity itself is inherently bad. Hesse instead turns her attention toward the messages people absorb about what makes them worthy of attention, acceptance and love — and how social media has intensified ideas that existed long before smartphones did. Pasted text

Within the context of Devil & the Dove, the track becomes about more than physical appearance. It fits an album repeatedly concerned with stripping away things that no longer feel authentic.

That may be the most convincing aspect of the record. After years of performing, writing, recording and moving between musical communities, Hesse doesn't sound particularly concerned with making herself easier to categorize. There is a looseness that comes from an artist who has enough mileage behind her to know when something doesn't feel right — and enough confidence to change it when it doesn't.

Devil & the Dove therefore feels less like an introduction than a recalibration.

It is an album made by someone looking backward without moving backward, acknowledging the darker chapters without allowing them to dictate what comes next. Five years is a long time to live with a record. In Hesse's case, that time appears to have been part of the point.

The devil and the dove both make it onto the album.

Hesse seems to understand that you need a little of each.

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