Porcelain Angel marks a refining of Rees Shad’s recipe for blending various musical genres with entrancing narratives where we are introduced to captivating characters. A number of wonderful guests join Rees and his band The Conversations (Marcus Benoit, Jeff Link, and Bobby Kay) on this album. Eleanor Dubinsky, Kemp Harris, Wanda Houston, Rick Ruskin, R.B. Stone, Dario Acosta Teich, and Natalia Zukerman are all featured here, and are the fine filigree in the stories that Rees weaves.
John Apice wrote in Americana Highways that "Rees’s vocal approach is a cross between Joe Henry, Peter Himmelman & John Wesley Harding – an all-knowing tonality that pours forth not like water or gasoline but thicker like honey…like oil…like blood. There are 12 rootsy slices from the imagination of Massachusetts’ musician Rees Shad on his 17th LP Porcelain Angel."
The album includes:
- Ain’t That the Way (featuring Kemp Harris, Wanda Houston, & Natalia Zukerman)
- Magic Lantern Presentation
- Coda Blues
- Great Big World
- Isn’t It a Lovely Day
- Porcelain Angel
- Thumbing the Scales
- A Man Like Me (featuring Wanda Houston)
- Brighter Daze (featuring Eleanor Dubinsky)
- The Right Thing
- Your Last Straw
- Pistol Whip Hangover
Plus two bonus tracks:
- Coda Blues (the back porch version)
- Brighter Daze (the back porch version)