In its opening moments, The Everybodyfields' "Lonely Anywhere" sounds as sweetly unassuming as ballads get: As a gently plucked acoustic guitar sets the scene, Jill Andrews slowly and tentatively offers a sweet-sounding apology. But Andrews travels another direction before she's even finished her first sentence: "I'm sorry you're angry / Goodnight and goodbye."
Not surprisingly, a sense of resignation envelops "Lonely Anywhere" like a fog, but the song is no mere downer. A sort of grimly lilting epic, the song builds incrementally, at a pace that seems almost glacial. As Andrews and partner Sam Quinn introduce more lovely and dramatic elements — a piano, a slide guitar, some unobtrusive strings, Quinn's vocal harmonies — "Lonely Anywhere" swells into an affecting rumination on the ways a bad relationship is worse than no relationship at all.
Andrews may be matter-of-fact about love's bitter end — "I can be lonely here / I can be lonely anywhere" — but "Lonely Anywhere" doesn't sugarcoat the emotional weight of a relationship gone toxic. Instead, it slowly piles on all the melancholy the song can bear, one subtly tear-jerking ingredient at a time.
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