''The forest for the trees' is beautiful. To say it any other way cheapens the description.' Herohill.com ECMA Nominee--Female Recording of the Year 2009 Norma MacDonald is a singer-songwriter, avid biology nerd and not a bad little bowler. She was raised on AM country stations and Willie Nelson cassettes in her hometown of New Waterford, Cape Breton, but has made her home in Halifax, NS for the last number of years. On her sophomore recording, 'the forest for the trees', MacDonald manages to seamlessly meld her innate old-school country sensibilities with more mainstream influences (Wilco, Patty Griffin and Bruce Springsteen) without losing a drop of authenticity. By the time the band kicks in on the opening track "a little longer", one gets a sense they are listening to an artist who has finally come into her own. Juxtopositioning lyrical sophistication with playfulness (check out the anthemic, pedal steel driven "sand") MacDonald balances a visceral sense of nostalgia and longing with hopefulness for what lies ahead. On "we're ghosts" she sings the refrain "Let me come back as a flesh and blood reminder of the past" with an almost otherworldly conviction.