It's hard to believe this is only Plumb's third album. But it's far and away her most personal and revealing, not to mention her most focused, musically. Beautiful Lumps of Coal finds Arbuckle getting in touch with her inner rock diva, while exploring deeply personal aspects of her life and character with great poetry and substance.
The production, which is mostly handled by Jay Joyce, Jimmy Collins, and Arbuckle herself, provides the most vibrantly organic musical palette she's ever had to work with, engaging everything from heavy rock guitars to piano to full orchestra to basic acoustic work, and melding it all together into a rich yet raw canvas that drips with emotion. The songs feel much more dramatic than her previous material, like they would fit perfectly over the soundtracks of any number of major motion pictures (or dramas on The WB). There's an epic, storytelling quality to them, such as on the big rock songs "Free," "Boys Don't Cry," "Hold Me," and "Unnoticed," or the middle-of-the-road, sweeping tracks like "Without You," "Taken," and "Real."
For her part, Arbuckle pours her heart and soul into each song, expressing her ideas in the form of storytelling. She opens up about difficult relationships, her own culpability and failures, she comments on the hypocritical state of society, and she relates stories of life's harshest circumstances. And then there's that voice that demands your attention and refuses to let go.
Beautiful Lumbs of Coal feels like Arbuckle has finally found herself as an artist in every conceivable way. And it's by far her most artful and thoughtful work to-date.
