Shannon Vetter Tackles Mental health with Country-laden Americana on ‘Holding Pattern’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

Photo credit: Chris Jenner

On Holding Pattern, the latest from Shannon Vetter, the artist shows a deeply personal set packing the record with songs of lost love and personal addiction, all the while avoiding an all-out tear-in-my-beer soundtrack for a collection of songs that vacillate between deceptively peppy numbers and more somber moments. In doing so, Vetter – a masc-presenting non-binary person – manages to cobble together a record that you keep coming back to, and not solely for moments when you want to feel bummed.

Holding Pattern, written over six years, is made up of tracks that didn’t quite fit as rock songs for their other bands, Vezl and Big Atomic, but sound great as Americana and folk songs. Take “Boundaries, Baby,” one of the first singles, for example. The piano and sax blend perfectly with Vetter’s slight twang and guitar on the Country track about letting the wrong ones go and in favor of focusing on your own mental health. It works perfectly in this genre. The same can be said for just about every track here. The slow tempo “Binge Drinker,” with its fiddle, and acoustic guitar just wouldn’t sound the same with four on-the-floor drums or electric guitars.  

The record was inspired by a relationship that ended badly and as a result Vetter keeps coming back to soured love as well as their own personal struggles throughout the record (“Whiskey Lullaby” and the piano waltz “Ode To A Drunk Girl” are both as great as they can be tough to hear. Every now and then the melancholy drags down the momentum (especially on a track like “So Low”), but those moments are thankfully fleeting, and Vetter makes up for it with more impressive fare like “Great Divide” and the catchy “Strange Year” that closes the record. 

As an artist with bipolar disorder, Vetter is also a vocal advocate for mental health awareness and therapy. They also serve as the Head of Production for The Pete Foundation in Louisville, KY., an organization dedicated to empowering youth mental health and wellness by encouraging open discussions and education and providing tools for emotional development. Holding Pattern manages to serve as musical guide for mental health preservation as well, with Vetter singing honestly and frankly about their own struggles in such a way that it’s relatable to even the most (seemingly) well-adjusted music fans out there.  

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