Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

With the amazing breakthroughs of female multi-instrumental artists like St. Vincent, the groundwork has been paved for more amazingly talented women to create beautiful records that show the wonders of the many instruments they know how to play. And while St. Vincent went for a more poppy sound with catchy hooks and choruses, Shara Worden and her orchestral indie-folk project My Brightest Diamond go more for a moody setting, engrossing the listener in the pleasantries of even the darkest hooks. My Brightest Diamond's first album Bring Me The Workhorse was more of a rocking folk record, whereas her second and most recent full-length record A Thousand Shark's Teeth is heavy on the strings and light on the rock.

However, that is not to say the record loses any of Worden's charms. The first single and first track, Inside a Boy, is a gorgeously composed piece that is perfectly reflective on the entire record's downtrodden and yet beautiful tone. Worden's voice portrays a perfect mix of vulnerability and strength even in things as minor as a brief high note. Her voice is just truly as much of an instrument as the violin, guitar, and keyboard that Worden knows very well and it's moreso haunting and deep than even those instruments can be on tracks like To Pluto's Moon, a sprawling seven-minute piece towards the end of A Thousand Shark's Teeth.

Worden's lyrics are a bit too overwrought at times and her penchant for telling stories within songs is not nearly as strong as her labelmate and boss Sufjan Stevens. However, it's hard to really be turned off by any lyrical troubles with the amazing instrumentation and incredible vocal work done throughout the album. Worden's record matches the strengths of Bring Me The Workhorse merely by being radically different and in turn creates a record that truly stands asone of the most interesting and rewarding releases of 2008.