Sing It Loud

Easily one of the great voices in music, ever, lang doesn’t even pretend to flirt with Nashville on this one, just rounds up some hipsters and sculpts perfect dramatic scores around her inimitable perfect voice. Fans of Nick Cave, Dirty Three, Tarnation, Eleni Mandell, and the usual suspects who blend choice guitar with soaring dramatic vocals. The unsung hero of these recordings is the baritone guitar that pokes its head around all over and keeps it spooky and dark. I never thought that I could like a k.d. lang recording more than her epic all time masterpiece “Shadowland” but this one just may be it.

1) (4:25) quiet romantic start, crashes into a dramatic dark but hopefully epic plod, wow
2) (3:28) baritone guitar gives this a Nick Cave/Dirty Three western tone, dark and heart wrenching forelorn song of regret
3) (3:47) starts with an almost Bacharrach feel, but the baritone guitar reels it back into the dark 4AD realm
4) (4:40) lovely, a bit slicker poppy
5) (5:15) a Beatle’s esque 50 msec delay on the drums and a Neil Young guitar/organ approach gives this a certain retro flare, she really lets her vocals soar in one place, she is amazing
6) (5:25) smooth smarmy easy listening feel, ironic being the title trackas its one of the quietest, does k.d. lang have a future doing lounge style in her old age?
7) (3:30) lovely ballady, chill acoustic feel
8) (4:13) simple rock ballad feel, “I’ve lost my edge”, funny
9) (4:10) FUCK! A cover of one of the greatest Talking Heads songs: “Heaven”, yes yes yes!!!, if only Eno produced this too
10) (3:22) upbeat twang tone, hopeful heartbreak with flutey tones, nice ending