With the soft brush of 1930s banjo strings, you’re swept into an Americana abyss that lives somewhere between Zach Bryan and something untouched. Writing from a life familiar to many yet articulated by few, Natalie Del Carmen renders the ache and awe of early adulthood with rare clarity. Her songs sidestep cliché, allowing acoustic production to breathe as spoken-word poetry stitches the small, seemingly inconsequential moments of the past to the present with delicate, enduring reverence.
Pastures reads as an ode to family, friendship, and the uncertainty of early adulthood. Del Carmen captures her world in cinematic still frames: moments lived, revisited, and reimagined through storytelling whose imagery surpasses simplistic detailing. Each cut describes a collection of memories and descriptions revealed by an artist gifted with storytelling and a melody matured and refined to carry these narratives.
Carrying these snapshots is a wispful delicacy, anchored by a beautifully articulated low register that composes her round, full sound. Within this powerful, rich tone lives an emotional soundscape that develops the imagery rather than submerging it. Del Carmen uses her voice as a tool of emotive gesture, moving effortlessly through registers and subtle inflections that create a magnetic, irresistible sound. For example, in Leanne, Del Carmen draws out the enunciation of specific words that denote moments of pain or ache. At other times, the sadness of a memory causes a faint tremor in her voice. Separately, while repeating “Los Angeles,” Del Carmen sings with a lightness and dreaminess reflecting her view of Los Angeles and her origin itself. During these moments, the listener is also taken through perfectly placed vocal inflections that convey painful truths, such as “I’ll always choose freedom, I’ll never choose you.”
It is with these qualities that she can alter a song’s emotional temperature in a heartbeat. While spinning this record, it is difficult not to drift into a daydream because you don’t just hear her feelings, you inhabit them. When there’s a pit in her stomach, it forms in yours too. Her spoken-word verses extend this intimacy, closing the distance between listener and narrator until the emotions feel shared. Close your eyes, and it becomes the kind of album that makes you feel free, alive, and at peace: her intention all along.
Every strike of a piano chord or string arrangement feels intentional, guiding the listener through narratives dense with imagery and meaning. The production by Brunjo lays a well-developed foundation for Del Carmen’s storytelling approach. “Pressure in Pastures” exudes mystery, reflected in Del Carmen’s vocal tone and the melody. ‘El Cortez’ dances with playful ease, mirroring its storyline. “Plans Upon Plans” familiarizes a tension between yearning and acceptance, a concept the melody itself seems to grapple with. The melody grows from very still, quiet strumming to the storming inclusion of a fiddle and banjo as she tells the story of the obstacles faced in following these plans. Those wrenches accumulate to a heaviness from an organ that drops the mood and slows the melody at lines like “gave up all I had and bailed out.” That ache lingers until the song finally lifts into euphoria with “plans are just plans now,” marking a moment of acceptance.
However, this playground of equally soothing yet seamlessly captivating arrangements of production and instrumentation causes the album’s latter half to bleed into one another through their melodic cohesion. Many of the later tracks fail to reach a peak that feels entirely separate from the album’s unified palette of banjos and string instrumentation. Though each song maintains its individuality through varying progressions and layers, few possess a truly stand-out sonic moment such as the outro of “El Cortez,” the striking entrance into the verses of “Plans Upon Plans,” or the post-chorus lift of “June, You’re on My Mind.”
To the passive listener, this record, while rich lyrically, may register simply as a calming escape. To fully appreciate something intricately developed, it takes numerous repeat listens. Even as an active listener, you may not fully grasp all of it, yet you feel as though you do, which is the quiet power of prose so perfectly paired with sound. It is a densely layered record instrumentally, vocally, and lyrically. With each spin, something new is discovered: a lesson, a soft laugh at a line finally understood like “tallest glass of water in town,” or a sudden recognition of just how personal and how universal this album truly is.
After all, we’ve all had dreams that turned into plans, felt nostalgia for moments slipped away, or found ourselves unsure of who we are becoming. Del Carmen exposes these truths and coddles the listener with nurturing and a tenderness that renders them familiar and human. In doing so, she reminds us that sometimes the young have something to teach, and that elders can learn from the path we all walk.
