Posts Tagged: hurricane glass

2007 / 4 stars / reviews / sara bareilles — No Comments
5
Sep 08

Little Voice (2007) by Sara Bareilles

Sara Bareilles
Little Voice
2007, ***label***
pop, soul
4

For someone who supposedly doesn’t want to ‘write you a love song,’ Sara Bareilles has a whole lot of love songs on her debut album Little Voice. But that isn’t the only ironic thing about this album – Bareilles voice is anything but little.

If Jane Monheit decided to sit at a piano and write songs, you’d have Sara Bareilles. Like Monheit, Bareilles has a rich voice that evokes images of smoky lounges instead of huge arenas. Her candid lyrics are mildly interesting, but when sung in her voice they take on an unexpected complexity. I wish I liked this album better, but I like to think of it as a Dido album: nothing ground-breaking or really intriguing, just decent music and a great voice.

“Vegas,” “Gravity,” “City,” and “One Sweet Love.”
myspace, last.fm
Bird York’s The Velvet Hour, Catherine Feeny’s Hurricane Glass

  • Share/Bookmark
2000 / 4 stars / reviews / switchfoot — No Comments
28
Aug 08

Learning to Breathe (2000) by Switchfoot

Switchfoot
Learning to Breathe
2000, Re:Think/Sparrow Records
alt rock
4½

The evolution of Switchfoot continued with their third album, but there was an added delicacy here that was missing in their previous two. Obvious effort was taken with the lyrics, but something was missing in the arrangements and the general sound. If you ever get the opportunity to see Switchfoot perform live, you’ll see that they’re actually very active on stage. After listening to this album, it’s impossible for me to imagine Jon Foreman singing “The Economy of Mercy” in front of a live audience.

Regardless, this album was Grammy-nominated for a reason, and that reason is solely for the lyrics. It’s also fun to revisit this album just to compare its version of “Dare You To Move” to the version in The Beautiful Letdown. FYI, only the arrangement was changed, and subtly at that.

“Dare You To Move,” “Learning to Breathe,” “Living is Simple,” and “Economy of Mercy.”
myspace, learning2breathe.com
Switchfoot’s Beautiful Letdown, Catherine Feeny’s Hurricane Glass

  • Share/Bookmark
2007 / 4 stars / catherine feeny / reviews — 1 Comment
2
Jul 08

Hurricane Glass (2007) by Catherine Feeny

Genre: folk/pop
Rating: 4½
Check Out: “Touch Back Down,” “Forever,” “No Reply,” and “Unsteady Ground.”
myspace

In her second album, Catherine Feeny effectively blows any other indie folk artist out of the water.

Yes, that’s an abrupt beginning to an album review, but it’s as definitive a statement I can make without going into obsequious detail. Hurricane Glass is filled with beautiful lyrics that are all the more honest and raw with Feeny’s matter-of-fact voice. She reminds me of a cross between Aimee Mann and The New Frontiers, but less focused on drugs and/or love and more focused on the idea of truth.

But that’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of love songs on this album, because most of them are love songs. Yet, instead of a ‘mushy’ sort of love we hear a more realistic treatment; here, the unknown lover’s faults are recounted with ease but with an upbeat slant that calls to mind the old adage, ‘love is blind.’ This theme is consistent throughout the album which makes a couple of the songs seem extraneous, but it’s an excellent sophomore album that proves some people know how to avoid the dreaded ‘sophomore slump’ with ease.

  • Share/Bookmark
Newer Entries →