Jess Williamson: A Mile South of Heaven review – alt-country singer’s love-hate affair with LA

In her essay Goodbye to All That, Joan Didion writes that she left New York City when “the golden rhythm was broken”. Texas-born alt-country singer Jess Williamson borrows the title for the aching opening track of her sixth solo album, on which she contemplates whether she has had enough of Los Angeles. But while Didion was looking back on leaving the city of her youth behind, Williamson is still in LA, wrestling with competing desires to stay or flee.

This tumultuous love-me, love-me-not is set to Williamson’s most traditional soundscapes to date: “Deep in the woods I feel the hum of the city,” she sings on Hum of the City in her strongest Texas drawl over mournful strings and twiddling banjo. Gone are the iPhone-programmed drums that made her 2023 breakout Time Ain’t Accidental so appealingly offbeat, and while the Americana flourishes give weight to Williamson’s nostalgia for her native Dallas, at times they make the album stodgier and less imaginative than her previous record.

A Mile South of Heaven’s most intriguing moments come when she strips country music back to its bare essentials, rebuilding it as something that looks uncannily similar yet different. Take the sparse climate anxiety meditation Tracking the Tropics, backed by eerie Mellotron, with even the hand claps sounding sinister. Or album closer The Gem and Mineral Show, in which Williamson recalls sipping champagne with a pop star, and chills with a visceral, unadorned ending as she sings of the loneliness of being a perpetual tourist. On this record, homesickness is a constant no matter where you go, and every note is packed with yearning.