“Sherman has a clear, haunting voice that drew me deep into the music at first listen.”
“The debut solo album from this Seattle artist (and former member of Evening Bell and Slow Skate) is a diverse set ranging from bluesy, noirish rock and ‘60s-steeped garage-pop to brooding, psych-tinged rock and dreamy atmospheric ballads. ”
“Singer Caitlin Sherman is patient. She has the control and uneasy grace of Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, but she makes that unease sound effortless with her exacting shrill ”
“Caitlin Sherman is more than a sultry voice. With a storyteller’s eye for detail, she paints a vivid portrait”
“Sherman delivers confident answers in country songs from a point of power, navigating the labyrinth of love, personal, and political strife with confidence. Death to the Damsel recalls the pristine production and dark humor of Lee Hazlewood records, and the naked emotion of Townes Van Zandt, delivered with the heightened awareness women must possess to survive the world.”
‘I’m told to go it alone and just forget / you can love the song but you just can’t love the man’
“I was alone, unpacking boxes in the strange old craftsman I rented a room in during my divorce. Out of nowhere my computer turned on and started playing Townes Van Zandt’s ‘For the Sake of the Song’. I shivered. I melted. I picked up my guitar and wrote ‘If Not The Man’”
Years later, in an "about damn time" kind of moment, Seattle based singer-songwriter Caitlin Sherman is stepping out solo. She’s had her fair share of collaborations over the years, most notably the cosmic psych rock of Evening Bell and the hazy noir of Slow Skate. As a songwriter and arranger in both projects, she also held the role of girlfriend and wife. Now she is neither.
Death To The Damsel is a meditation on love lost and independence found in the wake of back to back romantic/musical entanglements. Each song an act to unbind oneself from the past in order to look forward. There will be no White Knight to free the damsel. It’s high time she untie herself from those tracks and make a move. “Find me a fire, I’ll find the escape, an exit from all that we built an invisible stairway, hidden from shame for a quick getaway.” And so that “heroine without a hero needed” emerged with ten songs charting her own path. Dark contemplative songwriting explored through fresh unpredictable pop sensibility, dripping with art and purpose.
Longtime friend Colin J Nelson produced, mixed and engineered the album in his Fremont studio Her Car. And while past projects incorporated vast soundscapes and string arrangements written by Sherman herself, she made the decision to stick to a set band sound making sure the song itself was the centerpiece. The pair worked to carve out a sound that protected the intimacy of the lyric and emotion with a studio band that could react to those dynamic needs. Personnel, both on the album and live setting, include Jason Merculief on drums (J Tillman, Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter, Alela Diane, Sera Cahoone), Bill Patton on guitar (Fleet Foxes, J Tillman) and Jesse Harmonson on bass (Jaime Wyatt, The Crying Shame).