Leyla Fences

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Compilation of all Reviews of "Liars, Cheats & Fools" in a variety of languages. - Leyla Fences

Leyla Fences
LIARS, CHEATS, and FOOLS
©2010 Independently released

Review by Lucky Boyd
Co-Founder, MyTexasMusic.com

As you scan the outside of the CD packaging for Leyla Fences’ debut album, there are a couple of hints as to what you’ll find inside. The word ‘bar’ appears on the front, the words ‘dancing tonight’ appear on the back, and the UPC code is in the style of a Texas license plate. You’ll see traces of denim in the artwork and a hint of fancy embroidery on the faux pocket holding the simulated instant photo on the cover. Now, without hearing the first note, I always like to anticipate what’s inside, musically. I don’t believe a listener should ever be surprised after opening their purchase. The cover should advertise the contents. In this case, my expectations were met. I expected to hear country music, songs about what happens between people when bars are involved, at least one song about dancing, and a sincere Texas attitude. All those elements are present. Leyla Fences has written every cut on this disc (you can also learn this from the cover) and her liner notes clarify that while she might not have lived every story, she was inspired by true events. Fences hasn’t been just sitting on the couch for twenty years hoping songs would pop into her head. Rather, she’s been out there, actually abroad, soaking up a worldly education about people and their experiences. Her writing makes her a woman’s woman, taking an almost tongue-in-cheek view of male antics, and how men should be treated as a result. But she doesn’t alienate men in the process. Instead, she embraces the gospel of a world full of those mentioned in the album’s title and simply presents those truths for all to examine. The opening cut invites girls to assess their situation and make changes if necessary, and cuts like “Love Doesn’t Work Like That” and “Two’s A Crowd” explain that there’s always an alternative to perfect relationships. Frankly, “Two’s A Crowd” is by far the most commercially viable tune on the album, and if properly promoted, is destined to be a huge hit. Leyla’s voice is Texas-raised country, edgy but true, powerful but controlled, and perfect for her style of writing. The performances on the disc are exceptional, using a star-studded list of pickers, and making good use of the excellent engineering and mastering. There aren’t a string of meaningless ballads collected here, rather an ensemble of well-crafted, crowd-pleasing, dance-inducing toe-tappers that will find a home in your disc player for an extended stay. Fences is well on her way to meeting those 100 things that an artist needs for stardom. A very good debut album is on the list. Leyla Fences can check that task as completed. Fans of great female-offered country music will enjoy the disc and will revel in the fresh subject matter. This is an excellent project from start to finish.
- MyTexasMusic.Com

Leyla Fences Shows Good Country Has No Bounds

Leyla Fences – Liars, Cheats and Fools
self-released


It’s not hard to see country music is currently at a crossroads. The Nashville music machine is now led by a new young group of stars more famous from their American Idol and Nashville Star televison appearances than the sort of roadhouse and bar tours their predecessors had to endure. The old guard is starting to retreat and this group of young’uns are the focal point of where country music is headed. Needless to say, there are plenty of hardcore country fans who are not happy. Calling the music of the up and comers ‘too slick’ for pure country, they parrot a longstanding gripe as fans of hardcore country music have been calling popular country music ‘slick’ for the past 50 years or so. Ever since Patsy Cline and her peers became the purveyors of what many wags called “countrypolitan” in the late ’50's, people have been sounding the death knell of pure country, fretting for their fiddles and steel guitars and wondering why the drummer was ever allowed onstage at the Opry. Never mind one of the inventors of the sound was guitarist/producer/A&R man Chet Atkins, a name synonymous with country music and one of its’ most honored and well-known instrumentalists. When Buck Owens brought his Bakersfield sound to country back in the early ’60's, everything calmed down for awhile. At least, until Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson started the outlaw country movement. Country purists hated that. Yet, today, another complaint being leveled at country music is it’s ‘too safe’. Whatever their stance, most would agree country music is at its’ best when it encompasses different types of styles. Younger fans want elements of rock music while the older fans flock to banjos and fiddles. Luckily, along comes Leyla Fences to rally the fans with the most potent brew of past and present country sounds since LeAnn Rimes had her first hit more than a decade ago. The only difference being, where Rimes was full of talent without the life experience and knowledge of what it meant, Fences has lived a life. Maybe several of them, and knows what she wants to sing, how to sing it and why she wants to sing it the way she does. Believe that it is not just semantics – Fences songs have depth and her vocals resonate with the experiences she has gone through to get where she is today.

It should be no surprise Fences’ songs show a maturity and a certain worldliness to them. Not satisfied with her suburban Texas childhood, Fences has seemingly led several lives from an aborted culinary career to time spent overseas as a mover-and-shaker in the corporate snakepit. It is the life lessons from these experiences which informs her music and gives her songs and performances a palette of shades and nuances most of the other new artists who have stormed the charts the past few years could never acquire with their manufactured histories and cul-de-sac upbringings. Leyla Fences has not only survived everything life could throw at her, life itself now has to contend with whatever Fences manages to throw back, which, in this case, is a very good album.

The first song “Let Him Go” is an uptempo country song featuring some great vocals from Fences and some great steel guitar from Mitchell Smithey that sounds as if it came right off of the radio. In fact, using this first song as evidence, the album seems to have great production values. Fences’ voice is deeper and throatier that your usual country thrush but the difference in her sound will allow her to not get lost in the shuffle at radio as her voice is very distinctive, with a rich vibrato. The next song, “This Close”, has a bit of Bakersfield/Patsy Cline to it in that it sounds retro yet has very solid production and sounds up-to-date as far as sound quality. On this song Milo Deering weighs in with some great fiddle playing and the rest of the band is really strong as well. “Hardly Livin’” is up next and is an uptempo song just made for the dancefloor and a little bit of boot-scootin’. Lyrically the song is a little slight but the song is pure fun and ultimately great dance floor fodder with the lyrics just working to serve the punchline in the title and chorus as in a lot of country songs. “The Net” comes next and is a much slower song with an acoustic guitar opening giving it a bit of a folk song feel, with a little anthemic quality thrown in. Some organ by Brad Neher adds a little needed gravitas to the song. The following song, “Love Doesn’t Work Like That”, returns to the uptempo groove of the previous songs and is an empowering, strong female song which should be popular with the same folks who made Carrie Underwood popular. This would make a great single and, like the rest of the album, sounds ready for the radio thanks to the flawless production. “Dancing With You”, the next cut, slows the party down for a bit to the old country standby – the waltz tempo. Thanks to some mournful fiddle by Deering, the spirit of Cline is once again conjured, though with Fences’ more modern-day sound. The next song, “Getting Over Him”, has a mid-tempo beat and is interesting as it serves as something of a female drinking song, which may be a new sub-genre of country created by Fences who populates a lot of her songs with strong women who are attempting to overcome their relationship problems. The next song is called “Upside Blues” and has a decidedly retro feel to it and could serve as a modern twist on Rosanne Cash’s ’80's hit “Seven Year Ache” but with way more attitude and a more traditional country sound than Cash’s song. “The Other Side” is up next and has a mid-tempo feel to it and a rhythym similar to Roger Williams’ “King Of The Road”. “The Fool” returns to the uptempo pulse of the earlier songs and would sound better if slowed down a tad as the song sounds rushed, with the lyrics crammed into each line. “Maybe” is another mid-tempo song and, while not bad, is not a standout song and suffers from a banal chorus. The following song “Two’s A Crowd”, fares a little better and is a cleverly written uptempo song about the joys of being single and having the freedom to play the field. “Life is Funny” closes the album on a mid-tempo note with a hopeful song about being able to roll with the punches.

For those of you who like retro sounding country but feel it should have a modern kick to it, this album is going to be right up your alley. Fences manages to find a great balance between what people consider classic country of the late ’50's and ’60's and what is on country radio today, as far as sound and feeling. The lyrics need to be worked on a bit, as they seemed fairly slight. Nashville has a history of using puns in the chorus and sometimes very hokey stories but with the new breed of country singers, especially the female stars, country has sort of moved forward to the next level and allowed women to show their independence and equality and to also allow the lyrics of their songs to mirror these attitudes. Fences could have pushed a few more buttons and still be considered fairly tame compareed to what’s being played nowadays. After all, Fences had no lyrics about taking baseball bats to her lover’s truck and gouging seats with car keys etc. With a little more tweaking to her songs (maybe once she gets into the Nashville system of co-writing, some of these issues will resolve themselves) Fences could find herself on the radio with the big stars in Nashville today.

- The Rock and Roll Report

Leyla Fences puts the “C” in country music. From the first bars of “Let Him Go” on her debut album, Liars, Cheats & Fools, it is obvious that this isn’t country pop that is played on every radio station. No, Leyla’s country is more traditional and it comes with a Texas twang and lyrics that really tell it like it is. This lady doesn’t mince words either, whether it is about staying single, some cheating guy or getting drunk. The best part is, Leyla makes these songs real, but maybe that’s because her songs focus on reality—and not always the shiny, happy, white picket fence reality.

Songs like “Love Doesn’t Work Like That” show feminine strength. There’s no way that Leyla’s going back to that cheatin’ guy. As she belts out the chorus, “You cheated and I cried. Trusted you, you lied. As good as I was to you. You found better things to do,” you can picture a crowd of women adding their voice.

Songs like “Hardly Livin’” shouldn’t be so darn peppy when you give the lyrics a careful listen and realize that it is about a woman working hard but not getting anywhere. But that’s what makes it great. Leyla sings about hard knocks and she makes it sound fun.

On “Two’s A Crowd,” the litany of breakups, and the reasons for them, will bring a smile to your face and it might make you think about Terri Clark’s “Girls Lie Too.” She shares a similar wit with Clark when it comes to her songwriting. Her songwriting is very empowering. She also makes the crappy things that happen in everyone’s lives seem not so bad. The best cheatin’ song has to be “Upside Blues.” Leyla sings about trying to stay strong while watching her guy with another girl, until something better comes along.

Another song that may hit close to home is “The Other Side.”—a song about the age-old cliché that says the grass is greener elsewhere. Sure, that saying may be cliché, but we all think that things would be better if we were something else or somewhere else. In this song Leyla illustrates her point of view beautifully with the line “I count your blessings because I can’t see mine.”

There’s one thing that you won’t find in abundance on this album, and that’s love songs. She does come close with the wistful “Maybe,” a song that has a lot of hope for a potential relationship. Leyla doesn’t do hearts and flowers. What she does do is heartbreak, like “Dancing With You,” a bittersweet song about a relationship that has come to an end, even though one part of the couple isn’t ready for it to be over.

Leyla is proof that honky-tonk is still alive and well and fun to listen to when done well. And Leyla does honky-tonk more than just well, she does it great! Liars, Cheats & Fools makes you want to grab a cold beer and dance a two step and then tell off an ex, but maybe not in that order.

At a time when country music doesn’t sound like country music, Leyla Fences is a breath of fresh air. Liars, Cheats & Fools is a country album that proves that some of the nastiest things we have to deal with in life can make the best songs.



Genre: Country
Sounds Like: Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Terri Clark
Buy: CD Baby
Released: 2010
Rating: 9/10
- Live Journal Mossip