Jobi Riccio -- Face the Feeling

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Being in your 20’s can be like a maze—every corner may lead to a new path, but how can you know whether it’s the right one? The only way to find out is to keep walking. Jobi Riccio narrates these twists and turns on Face The Feeling, a sophomore album rife with revelation and reflection and the good, the bad, and the ugly it rears. 

Colorado-born Riccio has the sign-off from some of the industry’s finest: touring with Jason Isbell and Lucius, plus a set at the Newport Music Festival. Her style sits at a unique intersection of multiple genres that makes it hard to pin down in the best way. She has no issue wading through emotionally turbulent terrain, laying out all her most vulnerable thoughts, set to a mesmerizing blend of bluegrass, folk, indie, and rock. That Riccio circumvents genre is just another attribute of her musical style: much like the outlaws that came before her, sticking to the rules is of little concern. 

Jobi’s warble is strangely familiar. Listening to her tunes I hear so many of the women I grew up on, and others I’ve grown to love: Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, Sheryl Crow, Waxahatchee, Eliza Mclamb, Flock of Dimes, Madi Diaz. At one point, however, it hit me that perhaps it’s not just her voice that’s familiar, but what she’s saying. There’s many a twenty-something adage housed in this brilliant sophomore effort that I find myself reflecting on as I near my 30th birthday this winter: trying not to lose yourself in love, nature’s ability to bring us back to ourselves, coming to terms with aging, learning no one cares what you’re up to nearly as much as you do. 

“I did a lot of growing,” said Jobi. “It was an excavation of self and undoing of a lot of people-pleasing. Especially as a femme person, that is baked into my socialization from the day I was born, and this album represents remembering the core of who I am.” 

The album's lead single “The Ridge” narrates the age-old internal struggle of wanting to fall in love but not wanting to completely lose oneself in it all. On “Wildfire Season,” she sings about climate change and imperialism in a powerful yet undeniably catchy manner–what Ann Powers called "protest music at its finest.” With “Coyote,” Riccio captures both the beauty and innocence of childhood with the longing for faraway adult dreams. “Love of the Song” finds Riccio facing her own insecurities, relatably singing about imposter syndrome and finding a place in the world on her own terms. On “Pilar, NM” she’s reminded that the peace we require to find our place can be found all around if we just look up:

There's a mirror in these mountains, they hold it up to my heart and remind me who I am. 

Through peaks and valleys of self-doubt, despair, indifference, confidence, joy, and love, Riccio unravels assumptions previously held, replacing outdated truths with new ones that better serve her. From beginning to end there’s a feeling of fullness, chronicling the struggles of coping with the hopeless, sometimes perilous interiority that can accompany coming of age, to a more hopeful, realistic approach: nobody may care, but that’s the best part. 

The silvery “Love of the Song” works as a particularly powerful memento on that journey. Written as she relocated to Nashville, the track stares down the fear of fitting into a “cool kid crowd” and finding her own place. The moonlit twang of “Pilar, NM” gives Riccio space to explore extreme honesty and finding strength to do the things you love even when they're difficult. “I've always been a pretty open book,” she explains. “But allowing myself to be challenged and learning the power of letting go was a big part of developing this album.”

The slow-burning “Doesn’t Matter” closes Face the Feeling with a blissful confidence and clarity. “Go give ‘em hell/ Go make ‘em mad/ Go give it everything that you have/ And don’t look back,” she avows, thunderous drums pounding each empowering word into place. The track originated from a songwriting lesson Riccio took with Margaret Glaspy, an experience which helped Riccio face her own imposter syndrome. “The song is a reminder that life doesn’t just happen in our heads and there’s room for all of us,” she says.

Album opener “A Little at a Time” feels like embracing the listener as they enter Riccio’s trademark blend of vulnerability and strength. The pain of distance rings out on the track over swaying guitar lines and a rich tapestry of harmonies, strings, and splashing cymbals. On the exquisite “Wildfire Season,” tracked the day after the second Trump election, Riccio’s rugged growl bounds against concussive snare and distorted guitar for a track fueled by rage and grief at the still-worsening climate crisis. “Leaders of our country and the ruling class are actively working to cover up the fact that a crisis is happening at all, despite the lived reality of haze-choked skies we have begun to experience nationally as records break and waters rise,” Riccio explains. The song proved a perfect call to action when Riccio performed at the Rally for Public Lands at the Colorado State Capitol, empowering attendees and those around the world to fight for environmental justice.

Through it all, the release at the end of Face the Feeling represents Riccio’s personal journey of growth—but also very clearly invites listeners along for the quest. “I wanted to task myself with facing the good, bad, and ugly feelings - and to create a place for others to do the same,” she explains. The resulting record acts as a call to arms, a celebration of self, even when the noise of the world threatens to drown you out.

Face The Feeling distills these lessons into listenable parables, illustrating that how we approach the life we live on our own dictates how we are with others–therefore it’s critical we don’t relegate these impulses to second thought but an intentional practice rooted in care and kindness. It’s in this balance that we can rid our lives of all that holds back our hearts, and live free. 

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