Word: harmonica
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...Octoroon (Mercury), due out May 13, is her major-label debut. Love has a voice rich with dark shadings and rural twang. She calls her music Afro/Celtic, but it's mostly front-porch folk with a few twists. One song, Simple, offers up a mix of blues harmonica and funky guitar. Her topics are very coffeehouse--there's a pro-tree song--but there's also a sharp cover of Come As You Are that remakes Kurt Cobain's anguished alternative-rock classic into a plaintive, acoustic plea for self-acceptance. At their best, Love and Indigo Girls sidestep trends...
...Small Repairs (Columbia), Colvin meets the Zeitgeist halfway. The harmonica, the assertive fuzz guitar, the typeface of the lyric sheet are all Morissettish. And if that cozens people to give her CD a necessary second listen, it will be a smart move for both Colvin and her new audience. What's crucial is that the voice hasn't changed; instead of Morissette's sandpaper, Colvin has a silky sound that she wears like sackcloth to suit her pretty dirges. These songs, most of which she wrote with her producer, John Leventhal, still have the swank and cutting edge of Colvin...
...owes a lot to Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with whom Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder worked on the sound track to the film Dead Man Walking. Other songs are even more derivative. The countrified garage rocker Smile sounds like a Neil Young tune, right down to the harmonica solo (Pearl Jam worked with Young on his 1995 album, Mirror Ball); it's pleasant enough, but it lacks the ornery soul of the genuine article. Let's hope this is just a brief detour and that the next time out, Pearl Jam will find its way back...
...clearly owes a lot to Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with whom Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder worked on the soundtrack to the film 'Dead Man Walking.' Other songs are even more derivative. The countrified garage rocker 'Smile' sounds like a Neil Young tune, right down to the harmonica solo; it's pleasant enough, but it lacks the ornery soul of the genuine article. "Hopefully," says Farley, "this is just a brief detour and the next time out, Pearl Jam will find its way back to the gutsy inventiveness that deservedly made it the most popular band...
...clearly owes a lot to Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with whom Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder worked on the soundtrack to the film 'Dead Man Walking.' Other songs are even more derivative. The countrified garage rocker 'Smile' sounds like a Neil Young tune, right down to the harmonica solo; it's pleasant enough, but it lacks the ornery soul of the genuine article. "Hopefully," says Farley, "this is just a brief detour and the next time out, Pearl Jam will find its way back to the gutsy inventiveness that deservedly made it the most popular band...