This album is being billed as the return of Tarnation, which is odd for two reasons. The first is that the two albums released under that name on 4AD a decade ago are remembered fondly, but not widely. The second is that Tarnation was and remains primarily one person: Paula Frazer. And while she dropped the name Tarnation in 1998, she has remained active, releasing two albums and a compilation on the Birdman label. So who or what exactly is returning here is at first a little hard to say.
But whatever she calls herself, with Now It’s Time, Frazer has made what might be the best album of her peripatetic career. All the influences that have shaded her past work are here — the aching lap steel and dark country balladry that marked Tarnation, along with the winsome folk-rock and baroque pop tinges that started to emerge on her more recent releases. She has continued to mature as both a singer and songwriter, and this album feels newly confident in both concept and execution. Inspired by “events that happened one summer in San Francisco,” it is a breakup record for grown-ups, buoyed by sighing melodies and the luminous longing of Frazer’s silvery voice.
Whatever wisdom is here, Frazer came to it via unpredictable routes. She grew up in Georgia and Arkansas, then lit out for the coast. In San Francisco, she bounced through a number of bands and projects, including an affiliation with the proto-riot-grrls in Frightwig. Her rootsy turn with Tarnation was in line with the torch-and-twang inclinations of any number of ex-punks in the 1990s, but not many of them had her down-home pedigree or her rich, expressive way with a phrase. The two Tarnation albums showed her vocal prowess and her debt to Patsy Cline, although in retrospect they sound a little self-conscious, teetering between intuitive and imitative.
Folding the Tarnation franchise seems to have liberated Frazer in several ways. She collaborated with a range of unlikely partners, including Cornershop, the Tindersticks and Handsome Boy Modeling School. Her two albums under her own name — Indoor Universe in 2001 and Leave The Sad Things Behind in 2005 — broadened her musical and melodic scope, with the help of Bay Area friends including acoustic duo the Moore Brothers and Patrick Main, keyboardist with the flower-power-pop band Oranger. The albums showed the influence of the Beatles and the Mamas & the Papas as much as Hank Williams or Charlie Rich, and they were fleshed out with horns and strings.
On Now It’s Time, the Tarnation name is back, but with an ampersand. It is not a return to any particular form, just a signal of Frazer’s comfort with all the quirks and turns of her career. The strings and keyboards are still here, along with the lap steel, and the complex melodies dip and pivot unexpectedly. If the album recalls anything, it’s the lush folk-pop of the late ’60s and early ’70s. (The press kit, with some justification, invokes Vashti Bunyan and Neil Young.)
A few almost sprightly tracks, such as “Bitter Rose” and “Another Day”, sit beside meditative ballads and, yes, a twangy torch song or two. The tunes are mostly reflections on loss and regret, from the perspective of a woman who has enough experience with both to recognize their contours. “You turn away from those things that you once longed for,” she sings on “Another Day”, with what sounds less like sadness than anticipation of the inevitable.
Constant throughout is the pleasure of Frazer’s singing. She has always had a strong voice, but the years have given her greater command of its warmth and depth. She relies much less than she used to on the exaggerated southern vowels that lent Tarnation an air of “authenticity.” Frazer seems less concerned with authenticity these days than honesty. She isn’t trying to sound like anybody but herself.
