Review: Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche Combat Isolation With Harmony on 'I Can Still Hear You'

Thanks to Julie Andrews, the world knows that “a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down” and lord knows 2020 has been one large choker of a spoonful of medicine. But mother and daughter duo Suzzy Roche (of Irish/American folk group The Roches) and Lucy Wainwright Roche (also the daughter of folk rocker Loudon Wainwright) are doing their best to provide the sugar, bringing their sweet, almost fragile, harmonies to songs about the isolation of the pandemic, personal loss (Suzzy lost her sister and bandmate Maggie and her mother in 2017), and a world increasingly marked by divisiveness, misogyny, and hate. Their album, I Can Still Hear You, is out now.

An interesting thread running throughout I Can Still Hear You is the use of animals to deliver its messages. This is nothing new, of course. Anthropomorphic animals have often been used to illustrate lessons about the human condition, from Aesop to Grimm, Roger Waters to E.B. White. The latter's boy/mouse Stuart Little gets a nod on this album, in the song “Little.” Instead of the fun adventure of the book, “Little” explores the terrifying prospect of being different (in this case, small) in a world. But ultimately, “Little” is a tale of perseverance and taking advantage of those limits. “I slipped through the cracks in your wall.”

Another take on the fairy tale is “SwanDuck Song.” A reverse take on “The Ugly Duckling” finds a swan who literally transforms into a duck without warning, and spends the song trying to fit into her new reality, lamenting the loss of her “long smooth neck, elegance, and grace. Got a bad case of duck face.” The song's SwanDuck is told that “from now on no swan will be your friend, but there'll be more ducks around the bend.” But is also warned it requires work on her own part “but only when you swim the muddy water with your two duck feet.” Roche then hits you with the album's best single line, and one that hammers home just how much the SwanDuck resembles many humans who find themselves navigating life without a rudder due to loss. “Your strange new heart doesn't even recognize its beat.”

The album's title track was written by Wainwright Roche after the duo had to flee Nashville in the middle of recording the album to get back home to New York before COVID-19 locked down travel. Entering a city normally teeming with humanity that was suddenly transformed to a ghost town, “I Can Still Hear You” is a reminder that, just because the people aren't visible, they're still present and connections are critical, even if those connections have to temporarily be auditory rather than visual.

Of course, no song featuring talking animals could be complete without a nod to arguably the most famous anthropomorphic animal in the world, Kermit the Frog. Fortunately, “Bein' Green”, with its message both of the worth of people (or frogs) of all colors and being comfortable in your own skin slots in well with the overall theme of I Can Still Hear You.

“Joseph D” is another standout. A violent misogynist, Joseph also sleeps with a teddy bear to protect from his own “lifelong nightmare.” Throughout, the violent man exhibits fragile childlike tendencies to correspond with his toddler-like tantrums. It's enough to give the impression that, while Joseph could very easily be a “Proud Boy” (something that is my interpretation, not theirs, in fairness. Please don't go yell at the Roches...), he isn't really all that proud in private.

Helping the duo out on the album are a pair of well-known artists, The Indigo Girls. Emily Saliers and Amy Ray make separate appearances on guitar and vocals. The album also features production by Jordan Brooke Hamlin and instrumentals from some of Nashville's best sessions players.

Overall, the whimsy works. There are plenty of down tempo dirges about the present state of affairs. By packaging these songs in sweet harmonies and lush instrumentals, they're somewhat easier to swallow. Like Andrews' spoonful of sugar, the medicine goes down, if not easily, at least slightly less bitterly than it has all year long. And for that, I'm thankful that I Can Still Hear You exists. We can always use a little sweetness right now.