Julie Christensen - Weeds Like Us

From the Ventura County Reporter (a southern California alternative-weekly staple), music editor Michel Miller reports: 'You don't earn a pedigree like Julie Christensen's without a high level of authenticity... Christensen manages to convey the beauty of suffering with a subtlety that cannot be faked. It's a quality that less-seasoned vocalists could and should learn from. WEEDS LIKE US opens with... an infectious R&B-flavored number that showcases Christensen's range - then moves into more introspective territory... The album's 13 songs... repeat this pattern of trading lighthearted grit with poignant confessional, much in the rhythm of a life well lived. The bonus track, "Another One," is particularly emotional... Christensen's career fits pretty squarely in the folk-Americana category, where a handful of other '80s L.A. punk rock alumni also comfortably landed. Probably best known for her work with Leonard Cohen, Christensen has earned a reputation for her vocal versatility. She is indeed a force to be reckoned with and this is a record worthy of your full attention...' "There is searing resolve in these songs...' (Bentley's Bandstand) "WEEDS LIKE US... crackles and burns under the glow of Julie's vocals...' (The Alternate Root) 'Within this cohesive collection of tracks, the singer belts out blues- basted and soulful tunes and nestles into folk and country material with grit and wisdom. She even cleanly expresses the pop side of her musical being. Christensen does all this with a potent genuineness which bumps her latest album up a level, wielding a renewed musical mission statement.' --Josef Woodard 'You know what I like to see? 'Mature' artists continuing to grow. Like Julie Christensen, who comes up with a different twist every few years, this time digging into the soul/blues topsoil with her new 'Weeds Like Us.' Listening to the gospel-dippers 'Call Me Up' and 'Restless,' I thought, damn, she sure nailed that Staples Singers thing, and then I noticed that the album was produced by Jeff Turmes of Mavis Staples' Band. Christensen plucks some storytelling jewels from the mines of contemporary folk (Dan Montgomery's busted-up 'Outside'), sifts in some heart-tuggers of her own, and you've got something you can leave on Repeat all day. Great echoing, twanging and gliding guitars.'--Greg Burk, metaljazz.com 'There is searing resolve in these songs, whether it's Jim Lauderdale's 'Slow Motion Trouble' or her own 'My Lucky Stars.' Over 35 years into her professional career the singer sounds fully at home in the middle of the Americana movement, but at the same time remains very much her own person. Call her a permanent rebel, or maybe a singer on a march, but either way Julie Christensen continues to search for clues wherever the music takes her. What a ride.'--Bill Bentley, Bentley's Bandstand 'Christensen came out, smiled a big smile at the large crowd, took a breath and sang the hell out of "Blowin' in the Wind." It was a good thing Christensen was by herself. Anyone else on the stage would have been blown clear away. She needed no band, no other instrument, no accompaniment of any kind. She blew the roof off all by herself, to thunderous applause. In this performance and on her new record, Weeds Like Us, Christensen returns to her folk-rock roots - gloriously. After singing and recording for years with Leonard Cohen, performing with the punk roots band Divine Horsemen in the'80s and working as a cabaret singer, at this stage of her career she finds tuneful simplicity rooted in her love of the Gram Parsons sound, colored with the raw emotionality of the '70s.' -- Kit Stolz, VC Reporter 6/14/12.