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Everything on the radio is
beginning to sound the same. All the alt.rock groups sound like
Faith No More or Alice in Chains. All the pop stuff sounds like
Britney or Janet or whatever and the guys all sound like N'Sync
or whatever. And everyone is looking for the next one, it seems,
who will sound the same.
So I didn't have a whole lot of
expectations when THE HERETHEREAFTER arrived on the doorstep of
casa de Hartlaub, with Miranda Lee Richards on the cover. Well,
maybe my expectations did rise a notch or two. She looks young,
true, but she wasn't showing off her navel, and she has the
zipper on her jacket
zipped and she doesn't put her makeup on with a trough and none
of the titles of her songs have any words you'd have to bleep
out.
Could it be, I wondered, that she's going
to focus on her music, instead of distracting the listener away
from her lack of talent? Like India Arie, without a being a pain
in the ass about it.
And yeah, that's just what we get on THE
HERETHEREAFTER. The first track, "The Beginner,"
sounds faintly like something Alainness Morisette, until midway
through when the whole shooting match makes a left turn and
sounds as if Buffalo Springfield reunited and dropped by to add
their talents. THE HERETTHEREAFTER is full of little surprises
like this, such as the banjo riff that pops up in the middle of
"Folkin' Return," the calliope that plays for a few
bars on "I Know What It's Like " or the way
Richards suddenly begins to sound a little like
Lucinda Williams on "Right Now."
There are a lot of
influences weaving through THE HERETHEREAFTER, and not all of
them contemporary. "Last Solstice of
the '70s" has an arrangement that, in parts, sounds as if
it was taken an outtake of the first Doors' CD. But you've got
to work to come up with that point of reference; it's not
immediately evident,
and Richards, while she gives you clues as to her influences,
doesn't hold the flashcard up for too long. Similarly, on
"Dandelion," she takes an atypical Rolling Stones'
classic from their early days and makes it sound as if they
wrote it just for her. You can spot the influences, and some of
the tracks are evocative of someone else, but this is Richards'
CD. She doesn't let the influences drag her all over the block;
she merely uses them as a tool, the same way a sculptor will use
a particular kind or color of stone to fashion a work that is
all theirs.
If there is a weakness here it is that
Richards almost seems to cram every idea she has on to one CD.
On "Beauty Queen" she almost -- almost -- gets lost in
overproduction before eventually dragging the song back from the
precipice. I'm sure she will temper this occasional tendency on
future CDs.
And there will be future CDs. Richards
composes as if she is drawing from a deep well, one that is full
of melodies and images and sounds that we'll all stand in line
to drink from. And I'll be in the front.
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| Artist |
Miranda Lee Richards |
| Title |
Hereafter |
| Label |
Virgin
Records |
| Reviewer |
Joe Hartlaub |
| Rating |
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| win stuff |
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