Word: singers
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Even Canadian women get the blues sometimes. But a couple of new CDs from two singer-songwriters let us hear how just good the blues can be, especially if you mix it up a bit with some generous borrowing from other genres...
...blues, jazz, funk, rock, and even a subtle note of country. Consistent throughout are Levasseur's fresh lyrics and mature storytelling. In Solitary Man, the most straightforward blues number on the CD, Levasseur sings of a man with "a hole in his heart about five miles wide." The singer would be his "sweet remedy," but the sad truth she tells us is that even though he says she's "so lovely, she could get a guy high," there's no rescuing him from his despair. In the title track, we meet a physicist and the lover who doesn't speak...
...Roxanne Potvin is only 23, but she has already made a name for herself as a blues singer and was able to attract Nashville-based singer-songwriter Colin Linden to produce her second album, The Way It Feels. (Her first was self-produced, self-financed and released from her hometown in Gatineau, Quebec.) Linden plays guitar on most of the songs, and there are many other guest appearances, including Bruce Cockburn, John Hiatt and Daniel Lanois. What drew such a constellation of stars to such a young singer? While Linden's influence certainly helped, Potvin's range of talents...
...Editors, whose debut offers an uneven retread of the sound, style and lyrics of their legendary Manchester-based predecessors. When everything comes together, as on standout tracks like “Munich” and “Fingers in the Factories,” Editors successfully combine lead singer Tom Smith’s distant voice with energetic guitars chattering across a stark, echoing background. In “Munich,” the album’s stellar lead single, fast-paced guitars skitter up and down while Smith’s deep voice implores...
...extend far beyond a complaint that not having money sucks. Dance-rockers Radio 4 provide the basis for the second track, “Middle Eastern Holiday,” and the album continues in a similar vein, trotting out monodynamic mid-tempo homages. The voice of lead singer John Archer sounds a bit like new wave heavyweight Joe Jackson, but stripped of any edge. And when he tries to be James Murphy-cool on the LCD Soundsystem sound-alike “Gotta Reason,” he can’t quite pull it off. Most disappointing (besides...