Customer Reviews

The Lovely

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

 

 

Caught a song on the radio a while back and found my way to the disc. A twist of a traditional suite of songs both beautifully performed and creatively arranged. Novel but never showy would be the best way to describe the sounds, which center about a haunting blend of gospelesque backing vocals and spartan string and keyboard sounds. The product of a gifted singer with open ears and an exurberance in her craft. A debut that lies somewhere in the world of the esoteric beauty in minature of Bjork and the respect for traditional song forms found in some of the more interesting work of say Fiona Apple. High reccomendations.

Mara Carlyle is a woman whose music is a seamless blend of various musical facets; slide guitar, synthesizers, languid choirs and...She plays the saw! She plays it effortlessly in such a fashion as one falling to sleep and into a dream....Her voice tangos and sways and bounces in duet with each beguiling element of her sirenesque and haunting yet whimsical balladry.
This album is indeed worthy of its title, and if you don't believe me, you have to believe that it will sink in as you listen to it repeatedly...It will unconciously be absorbed by your cereberal cortex!

this album got great reviews all over the place, so flying blind and only hearing the 1st and 2nd track on another site I decided to buy this cd, I wish I hadnt, its unfortunate because she has an amazing voice, but all the songs are poorly constructed and in some her singing is down right ugly, she tries for notes that are out side her range and it just sounds terrible, I think plaid ( the producer ) has a lot to answer for becasue of this.
The album kinda reminds me a little of k.d langs "even cow girls" soundtrack, but much worse........hopefully her next album she'll have some more honest people around her letting her know what sounds good and what sounds crap.