Ashley Monical - Facing the Shadow (2015)

Tracklist

01. A Child I Was
02. Running
03. Rubies & Diamonds
04. Stage Fright
05. To the Mountain
06. Hunt Me Down
07. Just a Little Colder
08. Sleep Child Sleep (Axel's Song)
09. Trouble
10. Honest Man
11. Traveling Soul

That’s the question Ashley Monical poses in the haunting “Stage Fright,” one of the most unabashedly personal songs featured on her debut album, Facing The Shadow. It’s the kind of moment of truth that can make or break a relationship between two people, but the “you” Monical happens to be questioning is none other than her own self. “Be true,” she continues, “that’s all I ask of you.” Her voice is vulnerable, pleading, but the challenge lands like a gauntlet.

Spoiler alert: Facing her fears head-on, Ashley Monical does not back down. After spending the better part of the last 10 years working towards this moment, the Austin-based singer-songwriter is ready to share her music with the world at large. Some would argue that Monical was ready for this moment as far back as five years ago, when the aspiring solo artist, still testing her wings, began attracting a fair amount of buzz as one half of an acoustic folk duo called the Wildflowers with fellow songbird HalleyAnna Finlay. There was even a fling with Americana Idol that took her all the way to Hollywood, if albeit only briefly. (“It was a cool experience,” Monical says today of her brush with TV talent show fame, “but it definitely wasn’t really for me.”) But as far as Monical is concerned, her real artistic journey begins now...

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