Album Review: Autumn Eve by Julie Odell

Just in time for fall, Julie Odell gives us the perfect rainy day music in her first studio album Autumn Eve. The New Orleans-based artist fills the album with raw emotion and her meaningful life experiences. The album dances the line between folk and indie rock, beautifully garnished with Odell’s angelic riffs. She creates an audibly fascinating album with an incredible story, if you are a fan of moody soft rock you will definitely enjoy this album.
Each of the eight songs on Autumn Eve has interesting inspirations that Odell explains song by song in an interview with Atwood Magazine. Some of the songs have a more humble beginning like Space, she says the lyrics for this song came from a journal entry that was written just as a stream of consciousness. Some were more straight forward like the song Caterpillar, inspired by the many changes and rebirths caterpillars go through and how she experienced her own transitions throughout her life. Growing up her father would collect and raise caterpillars, allowing her to see and learn about them firsthand. Others have a more meaningful story like the last song on the album Autumn Eve. Inspired by the birth of her daughter during a blizzard, Autumn Eve was the road she lived on. The lyrics express some of her thoughts and feelings leading up to the birth. The 8-minute song has beautiful progressions within the music that tells a story on its own. Although she didn’t explicitly say it, I believe this song was the inspiration for the album and makes the perfect outro, as it encompasses everything the previous songs were building.