Born in Baltimore, raised in Pennsylvania, schooled in Massachusetts, time spent in New York City and now Nashville, Amy Speace is a notable songwriter who has released albums on a number of quality labels, including Judy Collins’ Wildflowers imprint. Speace’s impressive skills as a singer and songwriter give her songs an unusually deep, penetrative depth underneath the alt-country, folk/Americana format. The electric guitar on “Half Asleep and Wide Awake” adds grit to the sound while Speace lays out her own version of human restlessness. “Ghost” takes a stripped down arrangement and turns it into a delicate tension. Her cover of Ron Sexsmith’s “Galbraith Street” brings the song a holy elegance and a beautifully desperate quality imbued by Speace’s whispered delivery. “It’s Too Late to Call It a Night” is a nightclub blues done to perfection. “Had to Lose” tilts towards country with its down-but-not-out point of view. In the end, it’s all about her voice, an angelic instrument that glides over notes and settles on the ones that tug on the heart, as “Real Love Song” makes plain.