Sarah Borges jumped out of the gate with three well-received AltCountry records — 2005’s Silver City, 2007’s Diamonds in the Dark and 2009’s The Stars Are Out — each indebted to her broad array of influences, from Dolly Parton to X. The Massachusetts native then took a few years off to get married and have a child, a turn that couldn’t help but influence 2014’s Radio Sweetheart, a twanged-out, fairly straightforward album whose title more than hints at its intention.
A year and a half later, perhaps in a sign that Borges doesn’t want to fade from view, she’s back with Good and Dirty, a rollicking give-song EP. It opens with “Tendency to Riot,” a hard-charger that brings to mind early Steve Earle by way of Lucinda Williams. And while Borges is not quite the wordsmith of the previously mentioned duo, she does have a way of delivering simple lyrics in an authentic way, her yearning voice dripping with lived experience: “I loved the drinking more than I ever loved you!”
“ ‘Tendency to Riot’ is a semi-autobiographical song about being afraid to be alone, and the fake companionship one can find in late-night bars and alcohol,” Borges told Paste recently. “Even the worst relationships can look dramatic and exciting rather than dysfunctional and wrong in neon light.”
The rest of the Good and Dirty is just as energized, closing with the simple pleasures of “Purple GTO,” in which Borges opines about driving the only car for her.
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This article appears in Apr 20-27, 2016.