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FolkWax.comOnline article Such a Sweet, Special SurpriseChalk another review up to thrillingly destroyed pre-listening reservations. While I expected after reading the press material that Sheri Kling's material would be sweet and nice, I excepted to be a bit put off by the fact that CDs with a staggering fourteen songs are invariably filled with filler and tedium- especially disturbing when most of her lyrics embody such things as the "healing power of new love" and other similarly mushy sentiments that usually don't impress this jaded reviewer, unless they are just transcendently well done. Yet, that is exactly what this gorgeous album is, transcendently well done and all of these wonderful songs (save one that kept this album from being perfect) did a superb job of bringing out the secret sap in this hardened reviewer's heart. Ms. Kling's surprisingly weighty and autumnal voice (no wispy whining for this lady) reminds one of a Mary Chapin Carpenter, with MCC's Country hippiness traded for more of a spiritually searching moodiness. The complex cross rhythms in the intro to the first cut, "This House," seem unnecessarily fussy, but oh what an amazing song, a lovely tune that analogizes a fixer-upper to a troubled soul. It has been a long time since I heard a stanza as lovely as "With a little work and a lot of love/You know I think it can be saved/You can look all you want in those new subdivisions, but give it a shot, the driveway's been repaved." I am not so enamored of desert vistas as Kling obviously is, but her "Thunder and Lightning," a song of the difficulties of returning to "real life' after taking a sojourn through the deserts, is nonetheless a sweetly infectious tune featuring an irresistible vocal soar into its final chorus repeat. The title cut finally does away with the odd intros instead serving us a sweet accordion lick (lovingly played by Bill Kahler) to start this song's build. Sparseness leading to the drum- inflection is how this beautiful song that talks of capturing the ephemera of life's moments ends. As Sheri herself says, a song about Internet relationships, reincarnation, the Internet, and impossible love has disaster written all over it, but damn if "Maybe In Another Life" doesn't make a stunningly beautiful song about just that odd combo of subjects. "She's Not Waiting For Him" takes us from all the supple gorgeousness of the rest of the beginning of the album into much more of a Bluegrass feel in this song of learning to wait for only those who are worth waiting for. "Strong Bonds, Strong Hearts" is another staggering, yet simple beauty of a tune about the at once so simple yet so complex subject about the ties that bind family and loved ones. (If you ever get as frazzled about this subject as I and most of us do.. Just try not to feel better and smile when you hear her sing "We baptize the babies/We bury the dead, and all in between were losing our heads/but God's in the heavens and God's in this world so where else would I rather be?" The plentiful amount of material here doesn't dissuade at all as I had feared. Why we even have a throat-lump inducing sweet ode to music teachers in "I Heard Colors" and a heartbreaking and nearly too painfully-gorgeous-to-listen-to song of hope for children with AIDS in "Kissed by the Angels." "Working With Beauty" staggers you with its simple but prodding message of bringing beauty into all the work we do, no matter how mundane. And "I Am the Lord Who Healeth Thee" is yet another one of those songs that can convince you to have faith even in moments of doubt without being too preachy or being unrealistically chirpy. The only two songs that mar the perfection of this album for me are "It's Time," which still has harmonies to die for, but the djembe-colored music threw me a little, and "I Know That I Belong With You" is the only time that her declarations of assured love border on the treacly. But the sign that an album is spectacular is if a song can sell you no
matter how much you want to hate it. Being a bitter
not-looking-for-love-anymore person myself, I read the words of "The Stars
In Their Eyes" and wanted to loathe this song. This story of Pete and
Janie, both incredibly happy in their single but full lives who shockingly
find love at first sight with each other, presents a sentiment I try to
preach against with nearly every waking breath, but daggone if she didn't
suck me in and melt my grouchiness. Could she have persuaded me to leave
doors open in my life I was so happy to keep locked? |
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