Full Article Here. “Into the Heaven-Sent Light” by David McGee
“But if we’re talking about gifted musicians we might as well start with Rebecca Frazier herself. One of the most celebrated flatpickers to emerge in recent years–she gets the highest praise from the likes of Bryan Sutton–Frazier steps out at select moments here (notably on three of her self-penned instrumentals), at which points the album’s wow factor increases about tenfold. The first exhilarating taste of what she can do comes four songs in, on her original instrumental “Virginia Coastline,” a rousing bluegrass toe-tapper she kicks off with a few bars of precision speed picking that veers ever so slightly into blues before it gives way to a high stepping, driving fiddle solo.”…
The reference at the outset of this review to “spiritual reconciliation” refers directly to the final, magnificent song, written by Rebecca and John, “Babe in Arms,” the album’s one explicit reference to the child the couple lost in 2010. Understated and hymn-like, with John’s mandolin chops and Cobb’s soft, weeping fiddle the dominant instrumental voices, Frazier sings in a clear but wounded voice of the family’s loss and of fitful efforts at making peace with the absence of a loved one she thought she would spend her life with…
As much as it is a musical achievement, When We Fall persists in memory for its flesh and blood humanity. Rebecca Frazier will be heard from by dint of her artistry as a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist but the heart informing her music makes all the difference. It also explains the weird light bathing her on the cover–it’s Heaven-sent.”
