Rachael Yamagata
Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart
2008, Warner Bros.
pop, acoustic, blues rock
½

In an interesting turn of events, Rachael Yamagata’s sophomore album is split into two distinctive style and records. The first, Elephants, is similar to her debut Happenstance in that it is filled with dark, moody ballads, while the second, Teeth Sinking Into Heart, has a harder rock sound and a faster tempo. Yamagata’s gritty contralto of course shines poignantly in Elephants, but the true surprise is that her voice is actually better suited to the harder Teeth. Yamagata could have easily pacified her fans and created new listeners had she simply released Elephants, but Teeth… was a brilliant move on her part. Each song on the second record is just as carefully written, constructed, and sung as the songs in the first, but the second record reveals a nearly unbridled Yamagata; she almost sounds like Pink in “Faster.” Teeth is so good, I wish it were longer – but I’ll have to content myself with waiting for her third album.

“Accident,” “Duet,” “Faster.”
myspace, last.fm
Stephanie Dosen’s A Lily For the Spectre, Catherine Feeny’s Hurricane Glass