Customer Reviews

Destination Girl (with Bonus DVD)

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For those of you that don't know it, Destination Girl's vocal artist, "Finishing School," is Sasha Bell, the female lead singer for the Essex Green. If you are an Essex Green fan, as I am, Destination Girl is a must have album. The Essex Green just do not release enough music to satisfy their fans like me. (I mean come on, an album every five years, if that? Give me a break.) Destination Girl by Sasha Bell can help fill that gap. The music on this album is straight from the Essex Green playbook. There is a bopping folk rock beat to the music with richly-adorned basic-rock-group insturmental support that is always delivered perfectly. Sasha's sweet voice floats and sometimes soars above the often plush tones produced by the band. The best tunes are Reno and Page 16, but really all of the songs, except the obviously experimental tune Hair, showcase everything that is compelling about Essex Green music. It is hard to put one's finger on what the nature of that compelling quality is. There is a cheerful simplicity, a youthful optimisim woven into the very fabric of Essex Green/Shasha Bell music. Listing to the songs on the album you get the impression that Shasha lives in a more forgiving world than we all do, where people struggle less. I want to live there too, and Shasha's music takes me there. It is not the words in the lyrics or in the stories of the songs. It has more to do with the tonal structure, how the key, the vocal melody, the instrumental figures work together, weaving and bobbing around one another. Even the drum beat patterns quicken your heart. Essex Green/Shasha Bell music is not about a better reality, it is a better reality. No matter how bad you feel, and I feel bad often because I mostly listen to the blues, when you hear music from Essex Green/Shasha Bell, the world is a brighter, more understandable,and, well, greener place.

This album is really charming and wonderful-- and it makes you long for more solo Sasha Bell-- however great Essex Green is as a band. Pop and
folk strains intermingle really well, and there is a fine 'brightness' about it that recalls the best aspects of The Sundays, and pop folk from the
'60's but with updated ideas. A gem.