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Rating: Like an elaborate dish of elegant nouvelle cousine, but bland, like a red sunset overshadowed by a menacing cloud, like half a kiss given and not given, like a blurry photo, like a beautiful dress that falls badly, like a fresh beer, but evaporated, like a stopped Swiss watch, like a vintage Barolo corked... and one could go on forever. There are a thousand situations where you distinctly feel that something is missing or, conversely, something is too much. Situations that can annoy or disappoint. Like this album by Laura Veirs recently released by the prestigious label Nonesuch.
A simple recipe: choose a common thread for the album, in this case the sea, take a pretty voice, soft just enough, prepare perfect arrangements, insert some little guitars at the right point, a few choruses here and there, alternate potentially intriguing relaxed rhythms with a little jolt intended to liven up the listening. Thus, ranging between different musical genres from pop, to rock, to country, to folk while maintaining the sacred indie aura. Season everything with cultured quotes (Saramago, Melville) to endorse the author's cultural depth to the audience and the game is done... is it done? Are we sure?
It should be done, but it isn't. If only it were that simple. Ingredients are not enough, planning, talent, professionalism are not enough to achieve an unforgettable or at least commendable result. In fact, despite the perfect balance of all its components, this album by the American singer-songwriter ultimately appeared to me as predictable and boring. The singing lacks momentum, the emotion is controlled or reduced to the bone, the melodies promise but do not deliver. Yes, it is not enough to have good production, not enough to have forms, not enough to have little tasks, these, at most, serve to package everything, but in the end you need something more: courage, soul, and passion. Unfortunately, they are missing in this record. Laura Veirs does not put her heart beyond the obstacle, she stops before it. Thus, while listening to the CD, I oscillated between the hope that it would get better and the desire that it would end soon. It did not improve and it lasted too long. And it's a real shame because it could have been a great album.
A lost opportunity? Yes, in the end, this work can be considered in this way, because it could have soared, but it does not take off, it could have dared, but it is fearful. Let's hope it's just a half misstep and not the sign of a bad path that Laura Veirs has embarked upon.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
09 Cast a Hook in Me (03:19)
Breathe life to the street from the mouth
Those ruby red lips have much to give
Pull life from the land with your capable hands
Those life loving beautiful broken hands
Oh, I'll stand with you and marvel
At the cosmos pink and bright
All the pages flipping backwards
Til time is gone and wrong is right
Rivers running up the hills and to the sky and down to the sea
Where a merman with a twinkle casts a hook in me
Sing me a salty blue song, I'll be gone
With watery cheeks down flowered lanes
Tattered sails on a ramshakle ship, I'll go pale
Staring straight in the face looming tempest waves
Otherwise I'll wither and die here
On this reach of rubble rambling
With two years filled up with sand, dear
In a broken daze I'll be scrambling
Like rivers running up the hills and to the sky and down to the sea
Where a merman with a twinkle casts a hook in me
Summer sky falling into the sea, taking part of me
See the bones on the sand in the light
All the heards of the sea rushing by, pay no mind
To the dancing reflections gone wild
And at night a fractured star fell
And pierced right through the thick of me
I cried out in pain and joy, yes
I'm not dead, not numb, not withering
Like a falling leaf who keeps her green, I'm turning bright in the sea
Where a merman with a twinkle casts a hook in me
12 Wrecking (03:49)
Looting the destroyed
Vessels of the sea
I wondered if the waves
Had taken all of me
All of me back
Down to the black
Down to the where the worms reign silent and green
Silent
We can do some wrecking here
Til a little color
Comes into your face
We can do some wrecking here
And find something to love
In this broken place
This broken place
And the king is a hand
And slaps you like a wave
And shackles you down
Bound like an anchored chain in the sand
Sends your ships to the rocks
Sends the keys to the lock of the chain
On your heart
To the mouth of a serpent
And his scaly glass shards
He's holding all the cards
And waiting in the waves
With the poker face
And no trail to trace
No trail to trace
We can do some wrecking here
Til a little color comes into your face
We can do some wrecking here
And find something to love
In this broken place
This broken place
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