Flying With Angels. Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega got in my live like with most people I guess with her single 'Marlene On The Wall' and even more with 'Luka', a song about child abuse, in the second half of the 80s. I probably had the album, 'Solitude Standing' on a cassette tape but did not bother to buy the LP second hand until the mid 10s. That was when I started to appreciate it really. There are no other albums in my collection.

Come 2025 and the link to Flying With Angels came my way. Announced by two singles that made it into the weekly singles section of the blog, the surprising 'Rats' and 'Chambermaid'. The singles made it a probability that the album would come by as well. Having listened to it several times only proved my feeling right.

Flying With Angles is an album that combines the past forty years with one another. Suzanne Vega, who is now 65 years of age, still has the voice she had at the time of 'Luka', with just a little more depth in it. In some songs she is close to the singer-songwriter she was then. In others she is almost a rocker with a sound that spans the decades. She is able to make her songs sound very 2025 and very 1980s.

The album opens with 'Speaker's Corner'. It is a nice mid-tempo rock song that combines rock with her singer-songwriter background. You can hear her singing the song to herself, demoing the song in her home, hearing in her head already some the pieces that were added later. A slide guitar playing solo notes, the lead guitar adding dark lead parts. This is just the start. Speaker's Corner is filled with little melodies you'll discover only by listening with both your ears wide open.

The title song brings her closer to the original version of Suzanne Vega. Not without a band sound behind her though. You'll find it the vocal melody that is sort of hesitant and meandering over the instruments. Almost as if she's apologising for singing to you. There is a tension in both the vocal and the music. Combined, it makes for a very interesting song to listen to. 'Flying With Angels' is proving to me how correct I was on the basis of my impression of the singles. Again the magic musical sparks are in all the details sprinkled over the song. 'Flying With Angles' is an even richer song than 'Speaker's Corner', spanning a career that started 40 years ago with 2025.

That modern sound returns in 'Witch'. It starts as any rock ballad from the 70s and 80s start: with an acoustic guitar chord progression. 'Stairway To Heaven' even starts this way. Suzanne Vega can compete easily with a modern singer like Aldous Harding with this song. From the chorus onwards 'Witch' is rocking energetically and convincingly, samples fly around, as do guitars and keyboards. Later on single 'Rats' repeats that rocking feel.

As I already wrote, single 'Chambermaid' plays in a nice way with Bob Dylan's 'I Want You', another very pleasant surprise on Flying With Angles. 'Love Thief' is a soulful surprise, as Suzanne Vega takes us on a totally different musical side street. Philly soul, Barry White, is the time of day here.

On Flying With Angles, her first album for over a decade, Vega worked once again with long time collaborator and guitarist Gerry Leonard, who produced the album. Together they created an urgent album that does right to Suzanne Vega's legacy without leaning on her past successes. Flying With Angles sounds urgent. An album from an artist on a mission. Her most engaging song, 'Last Train From Mariupol', is the only one, despite the topic and "God is on it frightened by all he was seeing", that does not work for me musically. The other nine do and may make it my favourite album by Suzanne Vega and that is a feat not many artists can say after forty years in the business. Praise all around.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght