Alannah Myles
Rockinghorse

THE REVIEW

Always beautiful, talented, and sexy, the feisty singer from Toronto has been prematurely, and unfortunately, sidelined by the big rock scene for many years. Fortunately, there's the Internet, capable of showing us that she's still in good health, lively, and performing: a gorgeous middle-aged woman, not surgically enhanced (currently, a rare virtue...), with her little wrinkles and gray hair strands, matching those splendid greenish-gray eyes.

In 1992, the year this second album was released, the lady was still thirty-four and riding high, and the cover shows her in all her charm, sassily undressed next to an animal as magnificent as she is: maximum envy, then and even now, at the thought of the old lion Robert Plant, who in those years enjoyed her charms.

Alannah made a sensational breakthrough with her debut album, released in 1989 and containing the mega hit "Black Velvet", a well-known, perfect, and unforgettable song: eleven million copies sold worldwide and, theoretically, great anticipation for this second musical offering. However, in practice, the music business had meanwhile changed rapidly, in America the big operators had decided to throw themselves headlong into anyone in flannel shirts and branded Washington State, marginalizing the "classic" rock of this and many similar works.

"Rockinghorse" (for us Italians "Cavallo a dondolo") had decent commercial success, not comparable to its predecessor though, even though it was of the same if not superior quality. Myles tried again for the third time in 1995 and a fourth in 1998, selling less and less each time and ending up, unfortunately for her, fitting into the notorious category of One Hit Wonders, the musical entities that tasted great success on just one occasion.

This CD has the pleasant habit of being found quite easily in the bargain bins and liquidation sales for a few Euros: and then it is worth the low price at which it is usually offered. Of course, Mrs. Myles is not at all into pop rock, AOR, or similar stuff. Instead, she plays rock blues, gritty, like... Zeppelin (it makes sense that Plant fell for her...). Her voice can always be harsh and penetrating, softening only in the rare ballads, which still have the evocative flair of the Anglo-Saxon folk song (it's typical for Canadians to keep one foot firmly in Europe in their arts and culture) and certainly not the saccharine snappiness of the disposable hit.

A lot of credit also goes to the musicians (Canadian, unknown internationally) at that time in her group, who primarily helped in the writing of the tracks, then were able to surround her voice with essential and classy arrangements, not skimping on acoustic guitars which are always magnificent instruments, while making moderate use of solos and most importantly, allowing the music to breathe, without overstuffing it with sounds.

The songs that give me pleasure among the ten on the album are firstly "Sonny Say You Will", a swaying and powerful semi-acoustic ballad, truly interpreted with heartfelt sincerity by the beautiful and talented brunette. Then the song that closes and titles the album, an archaic acoustic blues in the style of Robert Johnson, and also the orchestral and robustly romantic "Song Instead of a Kiss", lyrical right from the title. Praise also to the biting hard rock "Make me Happy" and "Tumbleweed", where the exuberant temperament of the Canadian shines.

To marry, someone like her.