KIAYA, NOVEMBER SUMMER

“I’m going insane and I’m taking you with me / I’m tired of playing by the rules,” Kiaya starts off her new album of smokey folky songs November Summer. It is her message of intent: she’s not gonna fit into any boxes that you want to put her in. But what follows are fourteen songs, influenced by the likes of The Cowboy Junkies, Stevie Nicks, and Sinead O’Connor, that make a lot of sense. 

“Are You In?” is the question that she poses on the first song, and it does take a certain amount of staying power to make it through 55 minutes of singer-songwriter fair, as impressive of a songwriter as she is. But you’re rewarded, if you stay the course, with a wonderful offering of songs about living the life that you’ve dreamed against all odds, with original thought and a throwback sound. Songs that particularly speak to what it means to be an empowered woman, who loves herself with all of her rocky past, hard fought battles, and the wounds that life delivers to us all.