Austin, Texas singer-songwriter Rebecca Loebe (pronounced (low-be) has a voice that makes you picture choirs of angels gathered around while she sings, whispering to each other, "You hear that? That's how it's done." Her voice is resonant and deep-toned and, above all, interesting. She has a way of cutting the distance between her and the listener, shifting from a conversational just-between-us tone to soaring melodically.

I'm not the only one who thinks Loebe is worth listening to. The Atlanta Constitution said she has an "absolutely stunning voice," and Alternate Root Magazine named her one of the top 10 singers in America.

However fine the voice is, the message of the song is always placed in the forefront, though; the voice is used to create images in the listener's mind and to move them emotionally. In short, this woman is good.

So are her songs. Loebe writes her life. Her songs reflect the roads she has traveled and have a lived-in quality to them. "Lies," which kicks off the album, is a ballad, a haunting examination of a love triangle, while "Forever Young Forever" is about a time when she was on the road and heard a song on the radio that transported her back to her high school days. It is a wish song, a nostalgic longing for a perfection that never was. It is, as most of her songs are, a moving, emotionally captivating song. Loebe is great at creating a mood. In "Say So," she creates a Muscle Shoals meets Nashville kind of thing, with a Hammond organ and a pedal steel guitar mirroring each other, against her Patsy Cline-like vocals. It's a great song, classic and contemporary at the same time, so that a timelessness hangs around it.

What it all boils down to is this: Rebecca Loebe is the real thing.

[ visit the artist's website ]