The world is full of break-up albums, kiss-off anthems, and albums about great shifts. With Ridgeline, Kelly McFarling explores the backroads and fissures between those common themes - a middling space informed by the past and the future but planted firmly in the present. Through stillness and movement, mountains and cities, solid ground and shifting foundations, Ridgeline offers a vantage point where all directions are visible and all paths are possible. For these twelve tracks all motion is suspended in order to reflect upon the view. It’s not a work about resolution or absolutes. It’s about the process of coming to a resolution and accepting the fact that there are no absolutes. Ridgeline explores sonic landscapes outside of McFarling’s primary influences of folk, country and bluegrass, creating a genre all its own. Lyrically, McFarling takes care to make plenty of room for her listeners inside of each story she tells. The result is a narrative both intimate and personal but with a universal appeal. The opening track “Deep South” begins with McFarling singing “Tell me a story to remember your face by – I’m not gonna see it for a long time, so make it a good one.” Seconds later, the band kicks in, punctuated by McFarling’s banjo and Tim Marcus’ guitar, and what could have been a sad song about moving on becomes a celebration of freedom. Where “Deep South” sounds like driving down a dirt road in the summer, “This Change” sounds like walking in the city on a rainy night. It too speaks of freedom, but of the darker side: what comes with carving out a sense of identity. The song beings “I want to be a good girl, just like I’ve always been – keeping some things closed, but I keep mostly open.” Halfway through the track her band comes in and transforms the whole mood and they don’t let go until the final line, “though my mind gets twisted, my heart is open.” The title track “Ridgeline” tells of a moment of realization: even when love evaporates, the most intimate and visceral parts of a lover can still remain. The sparse arrangement of the track tugs at your heart while Kelly breaks it with her vocal performance. “As this continent divides I cannot seem to pick a side – I am just stuck on this ridgeline…’cause I don’t know you anymore.” There’s no room for anger in the song, just a closing line devastating in its simplicity, “I know that hearts break in different ways, yours was a bone and mine is a wave.” “City Streets” is reminiscent of Rumors-era Fleetwood Mac. McFarling and her band take the listener on a romp through a city, any city - and the ways that places become living things in our hearts. “Before it was your story, these were only city streets – and before it was this monster, it was just a place for people to meet.” The closing song “Sideways” circles back to where “Deep South” leaves off. This short, light-hearted banjo tune is the perfect resolution to an album about searching for resolution. In the chorus McFarling declares, “We can move sideways and still finish strong,” acknowledging the fact that backward and forward are not the only directions to head in life. McFarling’s final line is a parting gift to the listener and perhaps, a mantra for herself at the close of the journey: “choose to see what you believe.”