Customer Reviews

Songs in the Night (Dig)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was introduced to Samantha Crain recently on local public radio. How do I describe this album? Well first off it was recorded live with the band performing in the same room. The vibe I get listening to this album is similar to listening to Sixpence None the Richer's self titled album. Samantha's vocals are warbly, unique and serve to draw you into a really well done Indie-rock-folk album.

Maybe you didn't get the individually made demo she was handing out for $5.00 or maybe you didn't pick up her EP last year featuring a favorite of mine "Last Stanchion Goes Belly Up" but don't let those mistakes happen again. GET THIS ALBUM.
Song In the Night is a master piece of Sam's last several years of work colliding together. "Get the fever out", "Songs in the night" and the classic "Boston" will have you toe tapping and your mind picturing the stories told by her amazing lyrics. Other new songs are "scissor tales" a song I had never heard Sam perform before and it is beautiful melody. Sam's voice is so unique and her style equally as new and different that this isnt just another indie girl from OK, this is a stand up music ARTIST who on her own has struggled and perceviered. Her songs are real, her stories are real and her creativity will inspire you to come up with your own Songs In the Night.

Samantha Crain's voice and songs are completely different from what you may have heard before. Kind of an alternative folk. Refreshing to hear something so different and good. It's easy to listen to this disc from start to finish. I definately recomend this to someone that has an ear for good music that is different from the norm.

Very well done. Her voice is quite reminiscent of Karin Bergquist of Over the Rhine regarding her vocalization.

Thanks to Samantha for the great music, I look forward to many more songs from this talented young artist!!!!!!

Samantha Crain is a Choctaw folk singer from rural Oklahoma whose vocal warble creates a sense of old-timey jazz. Her 2007 debut EP, The Confiscation, captured the feeling of an eerie walk along the canopied banks of a Southern Gothic river, and though this full-length isn't as starkly foreboding, its imagery and lyrical meters remain striking and original. Crain's gravitated from storytelling to poetic allusion, often leaving the tone and dynamics of her singing to communicate the pain, fear, confusion, despair and dislocation not transparently revealed in her words. The album is perhaps even more effective if you don't resort to the lyric sheet. Crain continues to stretch her lyrics over the words' rhythms, often repeating phrases in a trailing fog of lost thoughts or exclamation of suddenly realized memory. The Shivers' Americana basics (guitar, bass, harmonica and drums) are augmented with touches of mandolin, trombone and mini-moog, remaining rustic and restrained; the slow-to-mid tempos are broken only once for the post-punk rockabilly shuffle and twang of "Bullfight (Change Your Mind)." Crain's voice remains mystically compelling, and though her new songs haven't the thick atmosphere of The Confiscation's, they're still full of memorable images and riveting twists. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

I just went to a Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers concert. It was fantastic. Their sound is unique, they did one cover song and it sounded much better than the original. That's why I'm buying the album.

As much as I was hoping to love this CD as I do Samantha, I have to admit that it hasn't grabbed me - yet. Now mind you, I've only listed to it once all the way through, which may well not be a very reasonable metric or test case. However, I saw her and the guys at the Kennedy Center last week and she rocked the place. Absolutely amazing intensity and energy through the entire show! I picked up her EP there and have listened to it maybe 20 times. Quirky but very good, which pretty much describes Ms. Crain herself.

Naturally, I assumed that the show's energy would carry over to this CD, and I made short work of liberating it from the Amazon box (why so much cardboard for only a few CDs, guys?). I dropped it into the CD-Rom drive and kept waiting...and waiting...and waiting for that intensity, that vim and vigor of her live show. It wasn't to be found. Admittedly, after 4-5 songs, the music just seemed to merge with the background noise.

Now again, to be fair, I didn't really LISTEN to the CD to the point of focusing on her lyrics and story lines (Sam's specialty), nor did I concentrate on any of the instruments, amp tones, bends, etc., like I often do when enjoying a good CD. On the other hand, the music just didn't grab my attention, in effect insisting that I listen. I didn't even grab my right foot, which normally can't manage to even ignore the rhythm of a good windshield wiper or the cadence of a woman's loud shoes click-clacking their way down a sidewalk. It was just...flat.

Okay, I know, enough already. Sammy, I love ya. You got big-hearted talent and can put on one heckuva shoe, girl. You have a refreshingly humble personality and genuine rapport with your fans. I know this CD will indeed grow on me, but I'm just hoping that the next time around, you can capture that energy of yours and inject it into the grooves.

KS