|
It's been a long time coming between records, six years to be
exact, during which time Lisa Cerbone took at hiatus from
music creation to make a family. The result is an unassuming quiet,
record that keeps a thoughtfully melancholic keel. This is the
album you want on when you're nursing a cup of tea while tracing
the rain trails on your bedroom window, an album tailor-made for
the Zen of brooding.
At times, Cerbone's voice evokes warm comparisons with Susanna
Hoffs (in a good way) and even Patti Griffin. She doesn't
strain her voice as much as she seems to quietly exhale her songs
with a minimum of theatrics. Such artful scarcity dovetails nicely
with the production of Mark Kozelek, the moody dirge master
from The Red House Painters. His touch is light and serene,
keeping the clean, sparse arrangements set in a tight bouquet
around Cerbone's vocals. Kozelek's guitar parts are simple vine
climbers that generally follow the emotional arc of the songs
without resorting to excessive repetition. That wandering element
in the instrumentation synchronizes seamlessly with Cerbone's
use of images, which tends toward the filmic, a captured character
or moment two within cupped hands of a song. There are no catchy
choruses, no refrains that have particular stick, but the songs
work at the level of her lyrical brushstrokes, building into fragile,
beautiful portraits.
Like many a Red House Painters' or Innocence Mission record,
Ordinary Days has a relatively homogenous tone and style.
You might find such consistency and mood harmony dull or you might
find the uninterrupted pace to be cradle rocking bliss. For my
buck, this is just the sort of record that I love to sink into,
an album that asks only that you take your time allowing it to
patiently unfold and gradually seep in.
-Terry Sawyer
Track Listing:
1. Swallowing Stones
2. How You Shine
3. Sweep Your Hair From Your Eyes
4. Ruthless Order
5. Araby
6. Love Grows Slow
7. Beautiful Mess
8. Dangerous Thing
9. Mrs. Foster
10. Ordinary Days
 Talk
Back
post
in the webboard
e-mail the chief
Like this article?
e-mail
it to a friend!
|
Lisa Cerbone 
