Customer Reviews

Fireproof

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With this album Dawn Landes builds nicely on her two earlier, limited availability, releases: "Dawn's Music"(2005)and the excellent mini-album "Two Three Four"(2006). Indeed you'll find a track from the former and two from the latter on "Fireproof".

What we have here is a fine album planted firmly in the Americana landscape. With songs ranging from the folksy 'I Don't Need No Man', to a tough, but not entirely successful, rock-out like 'Picture Show' there is still plenty of time for sweet country-tinged musings along the way, 'Tired Of This Life' and 'You Alone' being obvious standouts. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the 'hidden track' version of Tom Petty's 'Won't Back Down',which, in its original form, while having a certain catchy 'anthem of defiance' quality, has always been an eminently throw-away-pop ditty. Dawn Landes takes this song and imbues it with a wistful sadness that you would not have thought possible, such that the song becomes genuinely moving, achieving what all good cover versions should aim for, casting the song in a totally new light. Incidentally I nearly forgot to mention, her voice is excellent throughout.

Overall I would suggest that this is a good album but not a great one, some of the songs just don't quite do it, but there is enough quality here to ensure that you are unlikely to regret the purchase if you decide to make it.

Dawn Landes has produced a haunting and captivating record that combines the earth-bound honesty of Americana with soaring moments of exquisite power and textured beauty. Ms. Landes worked at one of New York's premier recording studios, and her mastery of technique and technology is evident on many tracks, elevating this CD above the prosaic guitar strumming/pedal steel that characterizes even the best of the rest of this genre. One of the finest records I've come across in this or any recent year. "Fireproof" has withstood my many efforts to wrest it from the CD player.

I saw Dawn perform live with Justin Townes Earle a few weeks ago. Based on her set list, this is the album that had most of my favorite songs. It's really fantastic and not all over-produced like a lot of stuff these days.

Having listened to plenty of popular garbage, i firmly used to believe that no other baby will never ever come on rock'n roll stage, make & sing songs like the rollin' heroes of the last century did. They were all the miracles and i know i will never get bored of listening to their classics. I neither needed nor wanted to hear something different.

But after first discovering Dawn Landes just a few months ago, i'm in traumatizing shock! At first glance, watching some live performances of 'Tired of This Life' and 'Dig Me a Hole', i somehow thought Sandy Denny is reborn. Getting into Dawn's unique & brilliant voice, she started to tug at my heartstrings.

Even when you leave the story behind `I Don't Need No Man' aside, it's a fabulous re-master of a country ballad turned to be a musical masterpiece. In `Fireproof', Dawn takes you back to your childhood with songs like `Toy Piano' and `Kids in a Play'. You page through your photo album with the rockin' `Picture Show'. You not only fall in love with `Twilight' or fall `in Love with the Night' but also you fall in love with Dawn's sweet voice as well. And then, when everyting's finished, she leaves you alone with yourself again.

Time will tell if she'll be listed on walk of fame. But after years, i have fresh new rolling' tracks to listen now.

An intriguing and beautiful album by someone who has already left an incredible mark on the world of 'underground' pop music. Just as original and wonderful as her first, but with less avante-garde music and more of a folk and country sound that seems to show the influence of her native Kentucky. For some, the traditional folk tune "I Don't Need No Man" may come across as some kind of Lesbian anthem, although there is no evidence of this persuasion in Landes herself, and she is seen dancing with a man in the video for the romantic "Twilight."

Some songs seem very appropriate in a time of fear and a series of national and international disasters. One is "Bodyguard," with its wonderful personification and description of paranoid household items. Another is the touching "Dig Me a Hole," which expresses a longing to be sheltered from the craziness of the big city after moving from a small town. "Tired of This Life" is a beautiful track that sums up the way I believe many people feel living through the disturbing and often sad years of the early 21st Century. The melancholic "fireworks" passage reminds me of recent 4th of July celebrations during an era when patriotism seems to be forced rather than genuine.