Dyson opens The Moment on a thundering note of triumph and rebellion with “When the Moment Comes.” “You will know what to do when the moment comes,” she assures with a defiant howl that falls somewhere between the raw blues of Janis Joplin and the polished rock of Melissa Etheridge. It is a space that Dyson seems comfortable kicking around in, though she veers far closer to the later than the former. She does lack the almost unhinged edges of Joplin’s raw voice and fearless performances. Of course, being that she is older now than Joplin was when she died, it makes sense that her music would have more maturity. However, if she opts for the polished over the raw, it is in the service of creating more holistic songs. As a musician and vocalist, Dyson leaves room for both her singing and her playing to shine through. Her vocals shine like polished copper and she is a gifted enough story teller to reserve and tricks and flourishes to the service of the narrative. She plays with vocals trills in “Outskirts of Town,” adding fringes to the edges of lines like “We are told that if we work hard we will reap the rewards, we work hard and we never look up and the hard work is never enough.” It is an odd sort of a piano ballad that used the instrument to conjure images of dirt roads and factories. Her voice is raw and open as a wound on “Jesse,” a song about a woman forced to give up her child for adoption as a teenager. Dyson is an artist with some remarkable tools and she uses them to craft incredibly beautiful pictures.
With The Moment, Mia Dyson is attempting something that many people before her have tried. Making the jump from an overseas market to an American one is a tricky business at the best of times. And it is an interesting time in American music. There has never been a time when the mainstream has been so narrow, but there has also never been a time when the mainstream has been so completely unnecessary. Social media and mobile phone aps have created a unique world where accidently happening across a song is easier than ever and where there is almost no wall between hearing a song and buying it. The Moment has a place on Americana radio, and it is a place that it sparsely populated by female blues rockers at the moment. Here’s hoping that The Moment finds a place in the states that its music so richly deserves.
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