Monday, January 26, 2009

Record of the Month

I figured I'd do a monthly 'what I'm listening to' kind of thing. This could be viewed as a lame placeholder kind of post. And probably it is. But it's my blog! So there!


Heard of Lisa Hannigan? I'll assume the answer is a 'no'.

No real reason you should. She's been a good Irish vocalist, appearing on a number of projects - most notably Damien Rice's last two studio disks. Hannigan does a great job being the harmony to his melody. She has also shown up on Snow Patrol and Herbie Hancock recordings.

But now she's put our her debut solo disk, Sea Sew.

Just because she is a good collaborator does not make her a great stand-along artist. I was bummed. I was hoping for a stand-out album. What is good in theory becomes 10 songs of extremely similar nature.

What she is good at on Rice's disks she has spread out for her entire song selection on Sea Sew. I like a bit of variety, even if the style remains the same. Hannigan only has one song that breaks that mold, "Keep it All".

That is not to say the other songs are not serviceable. They are well put together, and well executed. But they are just bland - at least when played back to back. I find that her strength is being that stable vocal figure to someone like Rice - who can sometimes go manic on his songs (listen to their "i remember" from his first solo disk). I think she could break out of that role and I think this album is decent - just safe.

I don't have a video of her solo work, but you can see/hear her on the below video, as she sings with Rice on his song, "volcano".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hate the album title SEW much that I'd never listen to it.