The artwork to Leyla Fences’ Liars, Cheats & Fools CD includes the saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!” The package also disclaims, “The stories in the songs you are about to hear are true. The names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.” Fences pulls no punches. She is hardcore, Texas country, and no foolin’.
Coming out shooting, Fences resists a former lover who cheated and lied to her in “Love Doesn’t Work Like That”, affirming that love is a dysfunctional family that doesn’t always work out quite the way we want it to. With “Let Him Go”, she advises her girlfriends to give up on guys that are just not worth the trouble. On “This Close” she announces, “I just called to say I’m not coming home.”
Good intentions are sometimes not powerful enough motivators to get one past a bad relationship, however. On “Gettin’ over Him”, Fences finds herself smoking, drinking and trying to look cool because “Beer is not strong enough for all he’s done.” A large part of Fences’ frustration in this case is that her ex is doing a much better job at moving on. “There’s no getting’ over him like he’s getting’ over me,” she complains. Drinking also plays into “Upside Blues”, where Fences promises to drink until she’s washed a man out of her life, so to speak.
Fences is as pretty as a picture, but she sure doesn’t sound too vulnerable when she sings. At least not the way Rhonda Vincent and Alison Krauss can. Instead, she has a Reba-like toughness in her voice, which serves all losers and pretenders notice that she means business. With “The Other Side”, she imagines a different life than the one she lives. She wonders what it would be like to be a stay-home mom, and while she realizes the grass almost always looks greener on the other side, that doesn’t stop her from fantasizing. She then takes the concept further than most artists would, peeking into the life of a housewife who is as equally frustrated as her unencumbered counterpart.
Liars, Cheats & Fools doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know or give us country sounds we haven’t heard. But this CD is not about doing or saying anything new. It’s about delivering common sense in country style that speaks to the truth of love and losers that everybody knows. For the most part, Fences sings these songs straight, along with plenty of guitar and pedal steel. Nevertheless, “The Fool” nicely incorporates some girly backing vocals, which gives it a little extra silliness.
Although Fences comes off as a cynic much of the time, she has not completely given up on love. The song “Maybe” looks at a particular man in a realistic light. He might be Mr. Right, but then again, he may not be the one she’s been waiting for. Saying “maybe” is not the same as saying “yes” or “no”. It holds out hope that something good could still happen. Just maybe.
If you like real, honest to goodness Texas country music, you can’t go wrong with Leyla Fences. This CD won’t ever be confused with pop-country, country-rock, or any other over hyphenation of the style. If you take your country like your whiskey, straight with no chaser, then this is the disc for you.
Review by Dan MacIntosh
