COME HOME
Sheli Stevens
Indie
8.5-out-of-10
I was not familiar with Sheli Stevens until the disk arrived and went into the player.
I must say from the opening cut; Still the One, Stevens vocals caught my attention. There are some voices which simply put are easy to listen too, and I have to say Stevens' is one of those.
That's a good thing, since she really holds your ear through the 11 songs here.
Certainly some songs catch your attention more. In particular Where Does It Go? struck me. It has a catchy hook, the song title, and you are quickly part of the performance.
Stevens is a pop performer, although really pop today means something of a melting pot-style music.
As an example Lucky Man could be on country radio with about two pen strokes to change a note here and there.
There are also definite elements of jazz, or show tunes here too. That isn't bad, it's just what pop is these days.
As a pop effort Come Home has a lot of songs with catchy melodies. That too is sort of a foundation of the genre.
So it takes about one spin for you to be singing along with songs such as Too Late. That immediate familiarity is generally a good thing. When a song has a hook which gets the listener involved, it creates a connection, and music should connect to the listener.
When you take hook-laden songs and a voice that is a joy to listen too, you pretty much have a winning pop effort, and Sheli Stevens has both.
There might not be a song here that will be remembered a year from now, another trend in pop, but for the time you spin it, you will enjoy it.
In the terms of pop, this is good pop.
Check out the CD at www.shelistevens.com
- CALVIN DANIELS
BLUE SKY GIRL
Kim Fontaine
Indie
9-out-of-10
I have enjoyed Saskatoon's Kim Fontaine's music in the past. Her Life Happens CD was an 8.5 back in June 2007. At that time I was rating her CD among the best Saskatchewan artist efforts in my collection (one day I need to do a top-10 list).
So, given enjoyment from the Life Happens CD I was very curious to listen to Blue Sky Girl, a disk Fontaine had more than three years to put together. I was intrigued by how she may have evolved as an artist in that time, and whether she could punch a second CD into the top ranks of Saskatchewan music.
So I spun the disk with some rather heady expectations.
The first song on the disk was interesting given my thoughts on this artist.
I was impressed with her vocals on the earlier disk, but less so with the lyrics. On the opening cut Puzzles & Pieces I thought the lyrics were a pretty honest poem regarding someone giving themselves over to another; "giving you all my pieces tonight - every little part of me is coming your way tonight."
Vocally though, I thought Fontaine was off just a bit on the opening song.
The good news by the time song two starts; Never Too Late, the vocals I fell for in 2007 are back.And with song three; Help, Fontaine is back in the pocket. Her vocals are fantastic, and in my mind she shows her growth as a songwriter too.
Still overall, it's Fontaine's voice that I like most here. She has a voice that at times is less feminine, and that gives it a uniqueness that is enjoyable.
There are improvements here, although she can still grow as a writer. I was impressed with the words to Things I Do For Money, then looked to see Jay Semko was among a quartet of writers on the song, so that pretty well explains that.
Still the lyrics of Postcard From Pincher Creek shows she is growing in that skill.
While overall Blue Sky Girl rates near her earlier work, it doesn't quite give me the same WOW!, perhaps because of anticipation. Very good, and worth having, just not quite a top-10 pick.
Check Kim out at www.kimfontaine.ca
- CALVIN DANIELS
Past reviews are archived online at http://calmardan.blogspot.com/
