17 April,2011 07:11 AM IST | | Lindsay Pereira
A fabulous voice, mature lyrics and the experience of having lost her mother to breast cancer makes Rumer's latest album a winner all the way. Buy it for melodies that hold out so much more than a mere escape from work
Rumer
EMI
Rs 395
If you don't like Karen Carpenter (We've Only Just Begun, Top of the World), you might want to stay away from this one. This critic would like to point out, however, that staying away will only deprive you of one of the freshest voices to emerge from the West in recent years.
Born in Islamabad, 32 year-old British singer Sarah Joyce's stage name was reportedly inspired by the writer Margaret Rumer Godden (Breakfast with the Nikolides, Coromandel Sea Change). She began writing songs after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer (and eventually died of it) and spent much of the last decade performing with a band called La Honda. In short, she has been through enough to give her music the kind of gravitas often missing in performers twice her age.
A large number of people have based their decision of buying Seasons of My Soul on the basis of the third track, Slow, which was released as a single a few months ago. It's the kind of song everyone in a room, from the youngster to the grandmother, can hum along to. Those who play the fifth track, Aretha, will be instantly gratified to learn why buying the album was a great idea. The impressive thing about Rumeru00a0-- apart from her fabulous, world-weary voice, of courseu00a0-- is the quality of her writing.
Take Aretha, for instance, her tribute to that other great voice: 'Momma, she'd notice, but she's always crying / I got no one to confide in Aretha, nobody but you. And Momma, she'd notice, but she's always fighting / Something in her mind and it sounds like breaking glass.' This is elegant, slow-burning stuff that rewards you with every listen.
Come to Me High proves she isn't always miserable, while Take Me as I Am is the kind of track that makes hard days at the office a little easier to bear. At times, one can't tell one track from the other. In this case, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Check out Slow on YouTube, then head to your nearest music store.
