Customer Reviews

How I Learned to See in the Dark

5 star:		(8)
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I've been listening to Chris Pureka's album "How I Learned To See In The Dark" now for a week straight and I still can't believe how good it is. Chris has been compared to everyone from Lucinda Williams and Mary Gauthier to Neil Young and Ryan Adams. Personally, I think her sound is more akin to Melissa Ferrick meets K.D. Lang with the melancholy soul of Patty Griffin's lyrics. Yeah she's THAT good. Her sound on this album is driving and intense, with just enough Appalachian flare to garner her "alt country" status, but I'd still call it folk rock.

"How I Learned To See In The Dark" is also full of great guest musicians too including Erin McKeown, Kris Delmhorst, and Lyndell Montgomery (yeah the same Lyndell Montgomery that played with Ember Swift all those years). My current favorite standout songs are "Shipwreck," "Broken Clock," "Wrecking Ball," and "Lowlands." However, this is one of those albums that will no doubt grow better with age, and my faves will probably change over time too. Not since Brandi Carlile's "The Story" has an album moved me so much with both its musical and lyrical depth. Buy one for yourself and all your friends...they will thank you for it!!

How I Learned to See in the Dark is possibly the best CD I've ever purchased, full stop. If that sounds like hyperbole, understand this: I bought this disc from Chris at a live concert in May of 2010, after having somehow forgotten about her music for 2 years. It's now November of 2011 and I still can't stop listening to it. It's really that good--I'm *still* finding new things that make me gasp: little riffs I've never heard before, variations in her melodies, her simple but devastating use of harmonies.

Where do we start? With her vocals--haunting, sad, and dark? With her lyrics--cryptic and beautiful? Or with her music--Her melodies haunt my mind, lonesome, like a cry in the night. But let's not forget her guitar work--which, while perhaps more straightforward than on her previous records (Dryland and Driving North), provides the foundation for some of the best arranging I've ever heard. She brings in violins, bass, a device called a PorchBoard, electric guitars that hover at the corners of your hearing and add the perfect amount of feedback, and percussion that comes together like a puzzle. I find myself going back to listening to songs like Shipwreck, Barn Song, Hangman, Time is the Anchor, over and over again. She paints such beautiful sad pictures, with her words, with her melodies, and with her arrangements and instrumentation.

And then she decides to rock out, and she does it *right*. Broken Clock, even more than Wrecking Ball (the opener / title track), defines the best of alt-folk/rock. I haven't been able to get this song out of my head for over a year. It's positively addictive. Something about her music lives inside of you and won't let you go.

Buy this album. Buy it for your friends and your friends' friends. I give it 10 stars out of 5.

Christ Pureka is a major songwriting talent, with a Springsteen-like lyrical gift combined with Tracy Chapman vocals and melodies reminiscent of Neil Young, Lucinda Williams and Kathleen Edwards. She is the real deal, and she's just getting better and better. See in the Dark is miles better than her first CDs. This could become a classic, and certainly heralds a songwriter on the brink of much-deserved mainstream attention. Solid, powerful songs from first to last. Great arrangements; if you like strings and funky percussion, you're in heaven. Get it now.

Although I wouldn't call this CD a "total departure" from Chris's earlier CDs as another reviewer did, one can easily detect the changes that mark a growing artist: a lighter touch on some songs, an undercurrent of jubilation on others. As much as I love Chris's earlier work, this is now my favorite. I can't wait to see where she goes from here.

I'm afraid to admit that this is the only Chris Pureka album that I own and that I've just discovered her music this past summer. Chris Pureka was one of many performers at Seattle's annual Bumbershoot music and art festival. I found myself instantly drawn in and became an immediate fan. The album, How I Learned to See in the Dark, lures you in a full embrace of emotions and you never want it to end.

A highly recommended and must have for any music enthusiast.

When I listen to Chris Pureka's music, the surface of my skin tingles, emotional energy takes a hold of my heart, and I just can't stop listening. I keep it to myself, both her music and my obsession for it. How she did it again, I don't know, but this new collection of songs is powerful and impressive.

I've been a Chris Pureka fan since her first full-length CD, "Driving North." Such energy, vocally and with the guitar. Such raw emotion in the lyrics, and such wonderful imagery. It's still one of my favorite CDs of all-time, and my favorite of Chris's. She followed that up with "Dryland," which is a flawless CD. If it weren't for "Driving North," "Dryland" would be my favorite of her CDs.

Now we have "How I Learned to See in the Dark." Another phenomenal CD. All the things that make her first two so wonderful are here as well. To say that I place it as number three of her releases is not a bad thing. It's still better than 95% of the music I hear. It just isn't quite as good. I think my main complaint with the CD, and complaint is too strong a word, is that Chris relies on other musicians to fill out her sound and she doesn't need that . Just her voice and guitar are minimalism at its best, and what I much prefer.

If you don't own "How I Learned to See in the Dark," buy it, now. If you don't own her other two CDs, then do yourself a favor and buy all three. You won't be disappointed.

If you know Chris Pureka's previous albums you'll be surprised by this one -it's almost a total departure. One similarity to her other work though is the more times you listen the more amazed you become. This album is a deep, mature, phenomenal piece of work.