When
Suzanne Vega
released her debut album in 1985, she was a smart, fresh new voice from New York City's urban folk scene, clearly inspired by great singer/songwriters of the past while possessing a style and point of view all her own. Forty years later, she has matured into an éminence grise in what's now called contemporary folk, having influenced a number of notable artists herself. If time has changed how listeners look at
Vega
and her work, as a writer and performer she's refined her style without changing much at the core -- then as now, she's a storyteller with a keen eye and a clever, stylish turn of phrase, and she knows how to integrate elements of pop into her recordings without betraying the clean lines of her tunes. 2025's
Flying with Angels
is
's first set of original songs since 2014's
Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles
(not counting 2016's
Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers
, the score to her one-woman show), and if she's not as prolific as she once was, it finds her writing and singing with her usual level of skill and intelligence, and even adding some new colors to her palette. "Lucinda" is a fan letter to
Lucinda Williams
whose mostly spoken lyrics and insistent bassline suggest rap without sounding embarrassing, "Love Thief" is a sensual number with an R&B-informed arrangement that could fit easily into the quiet storm hour, and "Rats" sounds like it could have come from a lost 1979 new wave album with its buzzy guitars, organ squeals, and playful lyrics about the gritty side of New York life. "Chambermaid" is a witty character study about the woman who cleans up after a great artist, fittingly set to the tune of
Bob Dylan
's "I Want You," and "Speakers' Corner" ruefully weighs the positives and negatives of a culture of loudly expressed opinions, especially when the alarmists turn out to be right after all. Elsewhere,
is in familiar but fine form on
, with
Gerry Leonard
's production favoring the melodies with mature, committed folk-rock, and the closer, "Galway," is a gem, a story of what could have been that's warm, poignant, and entirely unforced. Like the best of the artists who influenced her,
is an artist who was built for the long haul, and
is impressive and satisfying in its craft and distinctive outlook -- her songs made her stand out from her peers in 1985, and they still do in 2025. ~ Mark Deming