kat Joel has been performing for quite some time, and it's good to see her debut project on the street. The opening cut is the title to "THE CARRIER" and it's an interesting foray into symbolism and sarcasm based loosely on events from a paper route of long ago. The song goes deeper though, and explores the human condition, albeit tongue-in-cheek, and provides a thought-provoking dichotomy of meanings. Joel's project, which is engineered and co-produced by her life partner and songwriting cohort, Hazen Reich, is a diverse fantasy-meets-folk project from one of the most artistic performers I know. kat Joel is adept at exposing the seedy underbelly of life through song while capturing some of life's truest moments and memorializing them with her poetry. Joel covers some great writers as well including, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Richard Dobson, Hayes Carll, and Jack Williams, to name a few. Sharon Goodwin, Tucker Bradley, and Joel teamed up to write Sharon's Song. To the amateur, this is the most depressing song ever written, but if you study the deeper meaning, it's a song about hope springing from the results of shared emotions and empathic listening. This is not your father's folk music, but it says everything he probably wanted to say, but was too conservative to verbalize. This is another example of Texas music diversity at its best. Get the disc today for only $13.99!