What We're Digging Right Now - Melissa Ferrick

Image by Joel Benjamin

Perseverance pays. A longtime veteran of the music industry and one of the greats of the women's alternarock movement in the 1990s, Melissa Ferrick is back with the truth is (MPress Records), her lucky 13th studio album. It's a sultry, fiery concoction of Southern-porch blues, confessional acoustic rock and love testimonials.

Ferrick turns to Paula Cole, a fellow purveyor of feminine rock, for backing vocals on album opener "Wreck Me," a breezy ballad that sets the tone for the truth is. Her truth was found in a variety of studios from Boston to Alabama to Nashville, blazing a trail of soothing Americana and tempestuous guitar fingering. Deep track "Time To Leave" warbles and darts in the spirit of Ani DiFranco, and "Take in All the Plants" likens love to the peace found after a storm passes.

The artist, who also is an assistant professor at Berklee College of Music, weathered a tumultuous relationship prior to creating the songs on the truth is. Her gift and her reward is birthing an album of survival and hope. Check out the video for "Home" directed by Nick Clark: