μblog reviews

Reviews of recent and not-so-recent CDs

 

Emily King – East Side Story December 31, 2007

Filed under: Album reviews— Tags: , , , — hugo @ 12:58 pm

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Emily King – East Side Story album cover

I bought East Side Story by Emily King as part of my exploration of R&B, after she came to play a mini concert at work. I actually missed the concert, but it was enough to make me curious about her and try her album.

I really got into the first song, Walk In My Shoes, which has a very good beat. This is apparently the title that she tried to put forward, as the album contains a bonus track, with is an alternate version featuring Lupe Fiasco. Another song that I quite like is Alright.

Not all songs pleased me though. The rhythm box is really overused on You Can Get By. E Melody doesn’t do it for me.

The album also features a cover of Bill Whithers’s Aint’ No Sunshine. It’s a nice cover, and you can really hear that Emily King has a very nice voice on it, but it’s not that different from the original. I always wondered about the appeal of artists to do covers on album studios that are not radically different; examples of good covers in my opinion are Hey! Joe by Willie DeVille or All Along the Watchtower by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

As I’m really a beginner in R&B, I’m not quite sure how this album would fare with R&B fans. Coming with a rock background, I found it a promising but unequal first album. Emily King is only 21 years old, so I’m sure we’ll hear from her again soon.

Listen to: Walk In My Shoes

Listen to: Alright

Click here to buy East Side Story by Emily King.

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PJ Harvey – White Chalk December 29, 2007

Filed under: Album reviews— Tags: , , , — hugo @ 11:49 am

Rating: ★★★★☆

PJ Harvey - White Chalk

I had gotten comfortable with PJ Harvey’s rocky sound. From To Bring You My Love to Who The Fuck?, she had a lot of decibels to release, in a way that very much pleased me. However, when I listened to the preview of her latest album, White Chalk, on her Web site last summer, I discovered that it was going to be very far from the sound I was familiar with coming from her: no heavy guitars, no screaming, but harps, pianos, fiddles and other acoustic instruments with Polly-Jean Harvey’s voice.

This is why, when I bought the CD, I was wondering how much I was going to listen to it.

The packaging itself is different: instead of a standard jewel case, a very thin cardboard sleeve with PJ Harvey wearing a white dress, in a photo that could have been taken a century ago.

The music turned out to be very soothing. Songs mainly feature her voice, sometimes a-cappella, and a piano, with a few other instruments. Some really bear her style in my opinion (e.g. The Piano), but all the arrangements are extremely simple. It took me a couple of listens to really get past what I thought PJ Harvey’s music for to really get into it; I then learned to enjoy it in a way which is completely different from her other albums.

It is basically a short (only 33.5 minutes), refreshing album. It’s not the type of album that you’ll be listening to in a loop, but rather one that you’ll be very happy to put on when you’re in the right mood and that will do its job then. Below are a couple of my favorite songs on this album, Dear Dearkness and Before Departure.

Listen to: Dear Darkness

Listen to: Before Departure

Click here to buy White Chalk by PJ Harvey.

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