Bravery can take many forms. For Danielle Ponder it took the shape of a leap of faith: leaving her successful day job working in the public defender’s office in her hometown of Rochester, NY to devote herself full-time to sharing her powerful voice with the world. The singer-songwriter’s mesmerizing eight-song debut Some of Us Are Brave reinforces that her faith was not misplaced, and her leap has been rewarded with a safe landing. Written and recorded over three years, the album is a refreshingly original, shiver-inducing mix of pop, R&B, blues, rock, and moody trip-hop topped by Ponder’s celestial voice— an instrument that can plumb melancholy depths with a heartsick murmur and scrape the sky with hurricane force wails.