Customer Reviews

Avalanche

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Needless to say, it has been more than a hot second that has passed since Leah Andreone has released a new full length album. 1998's "Alchemy" was her most recent effort, back when Bill CLinton was in office and gasoline was a dollar per gallon.

Back in those days, this type of music was all the rage, with the Lilith Fair and artists like Paula Cole, Sheryl Crow, Alanis, etc. hitting the big time. Now, in 2010, with the arrival of artists like Taylor Swift, Kate Voegele, Colbie Calliat, and Francesca Battistelli, the genre seems to be alive once again. So it is appropriate that Andreone returns now, a decade-plus later.

Andreone has worked as a songwriter during the lapse between albums, and the songwriting on "Avalanche" certainly reflects that. "A Flaw in the Way You Love Me" and "A Poet Should Be Sitting Here" are good songs by any standard - but even more impressive when you consider that she has not had an album in nearly a dozen years. The sound of this album is a bit softer overall than her 1996 debut "Veiled," but the song quality does not suffer, and as a matter of fact, it's better at times. In her younger days, Andreone sometimes sounded "forced" on some tracks, like she was trying to go for a style that did not suit her. On "Avalanche" it is more stripped back, evidently the type of record that she feels the most comfortable making. This is a very emotional, intimate set of songs that come from this girl's heart.

"Never Stop Trying" is a great opening song that reminds listeners of the discs Leah released in the 1990s. The rest of the record is more reminiscent of the Demos disc from a few years ago. The music may seem more subdued overall, but the songwriting is as strong as ever. "A Poet Should be Sitting Here" is my favorite track. Starting slow and then building up the tension both in life and music makes this song a musical rollercoaster. "A Flaw in the Way You Love Me" is from the Demos disc, but it fits the emotion of this record. "Live Your Life" may be the lyrical stand-out track on the disc based on the message it sends out to people of all ages in the current world we live in, it is a song that will continue to be relevant for years to come.

Although not a bad cd, I didn't quite find it as good as "Veiled" and "Alchemy". It starts out with a song in the spirit of "Veil" and is followed by a few other rock songs, but halfway the ballads set in and don't go away anymore. So I really like the first half of the cd, but the second half is more of a "chick-part" in my opinion.

Avalanche is Leah Andreone's first full length cd in eleven years, and time and maturity have produced some wonderful music here. She gave us a sampler a couple years ago with Unlabeled - The Demos, where some of these songs were shown in their stripped down most basic versions, but here the fleshed out depth of her music is revealed in full glory. This is an album that deserves high praise and widespread recognition. Starting off the set, Never Stop Trying is an anthem that seems like it was made for a movie soundtrack if it weren't for that it is a bonafide mantra of Leah's personal tenacity. Born out of years spent in the recording industry that swallows musical acts whole and leaves scant but a trace, it is a magnum opus of keeping your head up, your focus clear, and toughing it out no matter how bad it gets. True to her MO, the lyrics are trancendental and can be applied to any situation frought with frustrations and setbacks. Track 4, Live your Life, has a similar theme, but focuses more on the emotional beating that we take in those situations, and encourages you not to let them get you down. She brilliantly uses wordings that create a touching empathy, as though she knows what you are personally going through and wrote the song just for you. Very uplifting. Make Time For Me cleverly presents sage relationship advice with phrasing that suggests the influence of music in our lives and romances. Leah explores themes of troubled love (or what passes for love) in A Poet Should Be Sitting Here and A Flaw In The Way You Love Me, subtlely examining emotional ruts in relationships in the former, and psychological abuse in the latter. Show Me Some Evidence is the secong hardest rocking song on the album and examines some heavy questions about justice and fairness in the world. Theologically speaking, this is the one track where I don't necessarily see eye to eye, but she does raise some good and important questions, and I hope that by asking these questions that it will lead to finding answers. As one of the songs released in demo mode earlier on, this song has morphed fantastically from its simpler earlier self into a very catchy rocker, and should do very well as a single. Personally, I think that Love Is Everything seems like it would have been perfect as the theme song for The Time Traveller's Wife as it deals directly with the way how love inspires and controls us and binds us together inextricably regardless of where or when we are. My First Love deftly and beautifully works through the difficulties a person goes through after surviving a toxic relationship and the struggle to relearn how to love someone in a healthy relationship. In Jack The Gardener's Son we are taken on a search for a long lost love as it is shown to push aside the activities of the present and take over her life. This song musically reminds me of some of the sweeping romantic scores from the 1980's ala Simple Minds or The Hotels, but that could just be me... The album quiets down for its last two songs, lullaby I'm Here and the title track, Avalanche, which is almost more of a short poem about learning how to survive when you are faced with something that seems much bigger than you and is crashing down all around you.
Leah has had a loyal (if small) following from very early on, and Avalanche seems like just the album to put her back into the mainstream. For those like me, a fan since 1996's Veiled, it is a cause for celebration that the album is finally here, and it has been worth the wait!