Laura Veirs
Saltbreakers (Nonesuch)
If you heard Laura Veirs' 2004 release Carbon Glacier, you were transported. Veirs' sparse narrative lyrics, carried by a clear, indelible voice cast from the same material as Lisa Loeb's and Liz Phair's, took you to a stripped winter cabin, and you carried vivid flashes of memory—a thrashing river, stones frozen into the earth, stark afternoon light wearing down the snow drifts in a silence so incredibly absolute—as if the album had given you a singular experience of solitude.
Details
Related Content
More About
The title of her latest, Saltbreakers, and its album art, a mythic nautical panorama, promise another conduit into something otherworldly, but the invocation winds up much more like a seaside tchotchke shop, stuffed to its cluttered, dusty rafters with cheap and useless junk. Her narratives are disorganized and feel as contrived as a 12-year-old's sonnet, just a hodgepodge of winding, unremarkable stories punctuated with the standard lit-rocker archetypes: fire, moon, the tide, a crow, ship's captains, mermaids, rainstorms, even a nightingale. "Don't Lose Yourself" edges into anthemic, tripping drum loop redemption, but borrows too thanklessly from the Postal Service. The album coasts along on a wave of slickly produced, laid-back acoustic instrumentation, leaving a genuine fan wistful to see Veirs having gone the easy-listening, adult contemporary way of so many of her femme folk predecessors.
Now Trending
-
Voice Places
Find everything you're looking for in your city
-
Happy Hour App
Find the best happy hour deals in your city
-
Daily Deals
Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%
-
Best Of...
Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city
- Profile
- Newsletters
- Mobile
- Logout
-
Publishing:
ONOFF
