I Pledge Allegiance to Myself

Lizzie West and her songs are going places, have been places, and are here right now. "I Pledge Allegiance to Myself," the Brooklyn-based cross-country gypsy's first CD for Appleseed, recounts her latest adventures on what she calls "the holy road" - the open-minded path to experience, ideas, honesty, and living life in the moment.

Lizzie's debut CD, originally self-released and then reissued in slicked-up form by Warner Bros. as "Holy Road: Freedom Songs" three years ago, won her acclaim as "Breakout Artist of 2003" from AOL and Entertainment Weekly. Hits magazine called her "Marianne Faithfull, Grace Jones and PJ Harvey rolled into one." Her songs were featured on TV shows ("Everwood," "Dawson's Creek," Third Watch") and in movies ("Secretary," HBO's "Rock the Boat").

She was on the fast track to mass appeal. But ongoing disagreements with her label and the sudden loss of her parents to cancer made Lizzie realize it was time for a change. Fans of Appleseed Recordings' dedication to artistic freedom and social justice through music, Lizzie and her musical collaborator, co-producer, and boyfriend, Anthony Kieraldo (a.k.a.

The White Buffalo), brought Lizzie's new CD of 12 original songs and two cover versions to the independent label. Recorded in New York, Nashville and Jamaica, "I Pledge Allegiance to Myself" is an intoxicating array of personal and philosophical experiences set to arrangements informed by folk, roots, hip-hop, reggae, gospel and contemporary Americana.

One moment Lizzie is the playful, sexy seductress in the delightfully sunny reggae of "Rope Me In and Smoke Me," the next she's the jealousy-wracked accuser in "God Damn That Man." She issues her personal declaration of spiritual independence in the title track; in "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman (Thank You)," she gratefully thanks the life force within us all, then digs for hope beneath the pained life-during-wartime vignettes of "19 Miles to Baghdad." Although troubled love is a recurring theme, her unquenchable belief in self-determination resurfaces on many songs, including a haunted version of Bob Marley & the Wailers' "Get Up, Stand Up." The CD's other cover song is a bittersweet ride on Steve Goodman's classic "City of New !

Orleans," which becomes a bruised plea for unity in our fractured country.