Brenda Weiler
Issue #33
End the Rain (Speaker Phone)
By Erin Wolf
Published: September 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
“Time will not heal,” folk singer-songwriter Brenda Weiler intones on the first track of End the Rain, an album with lyrics born from the suicide of Weiler’s older sister Jennifer. Written during the intense recovery and rebuilding period Weiler experienced, the 11 tracks here serve as letters written — and traced over and over in Weiler’s mind — as a point of purification.
Building from opener “Not Forgiven,” where Weiler implores, “Do you see me here all alone?,” to closer “End the Rain,” where she shakily resolves herself to the question “Can I say goodbye when I’m not done with you? / How can I say goodbye when you didn’t?,” Weiler channels her grief — her lyrics raw — but her dulcet voice sounding like a folky Feist. In a genre grounded in storytelling tradition as opposed to pop-novelty, End the Rain can be appreciated for its ultimate tangibility.
End the Rain, despite its deeply personal subject matter, is not a far stray from Weiler’s earlier albums, which are equally moving in their personal lyricism, simplistic palpability, and unabashedly stripped sounds. This album especially is meant to spotlight the story, in line with folk tradition. Weiler’s clear and tremulous alto lights up the dark, lyrical corners of a waiting room, where she sits with her guitar, working through her grief. In a steady trail of words meant to strengthen, Weiler attempts to explain and fix an incident that can only be righted through the catharsis that song can bring.
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