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Aug 30, 2023 Web Exclusive By Mark Moody

On her third album, and first for Double Double Whammy, Allegra Krieger evidences a strong grasp of her folk-based roots. And in spite of the album’s title, Krieger’s feet keep her moving across an urban landscape. “I don’t know what pulls me or, in which way I am pulled,” Krieger admits on one of several of the album’s highlights. “A Place For it to Land” trades in a simple, seesawing folk melody and feels the companion piece to Townes Van Zandt’s equally spare “No Place to Fall.” Van Zandt sought shelter in his song while Krieger sees herself as the provider of the same.

Krieger has a knack for capturing the mundane detail, but in the eloquence of the observation elevates the same to poetry. Not unlike her forbears she has the ability to frame the set-up for an emotional connection to the listener. “From up above I saw you, kicking ice off the concrete,” Krieger relates on the same song. So much is conveyed from the warmth of her apartment in a few simple words. While the empathy may be implied, the addition of mournful French and English horn notes cement the feeling.

There are a handful of songs across the album, such as “Let It Go, Watch It Come Back,” that drift by without leaving much of a melodic impression after they’re gone, even if lyrically inspired. “I Wanted to Be” contains evocative imagery, “oranges in the south, letting the juice drip out my mouth,” but ends in an incongruous clangor. Fortunately though, beauty abounds in Sammy Weissberg’s (Kristine Leschper, Caroline Rose) horn arrangements throughout the album and the unexpected additions of piano on “Terribly Free” and drums on the closing “Lingering,” which better buoy Krieger’s tales.

At its best, I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane, gives a hard nod to the classics that preceded it. It’s impossible not to think of Joni Mitchell’s “Free Man in Paris” while listening to the jaunty “Nothing in This World Ever Stays Free,” but the song is also filtered through the modernity of Courtney Marie Andrew’s “Rookie Dreaming.” But Krieger takes the concepts further with her own tangled details: “At times I’m confused, at times confounded, sometimes alone, sometimes surrounded.”

The brief “Low” is beautifully understated, while the closing “Lingering” may well be the best song on offer here. Punctuated by William Alexander’s drum work, the song marries the ancient melody of the folk spiritual “Lonesome Valley” with grittier imagery. “As I rounded the corner, it smelled like piss and garbage, Fifth and Avenue A,” provides both precision but also the same message of the earlier song: “You gotta walk that lonesome valley, you gotta walk it by yourself.” Krieger knows this innately and conveys it bravely and beautifully throughout the album. (www.allegrakrieger.com)

Author rating: 7/10