Laura Barrett
"Victory Garden" CD
Paper Bag
Records
Genre: singer / songwriter,
folk-pop
Toronto, Canada
Oct 31, 2008 |
Victory Garden pipes through the ceiling speakers of Mr.
Thallacker's five-storey mansion. All twelve guests are seated around
the infinitely long marble table, surrounded by the expanses of the
gargantuan dining room. An impossibly intricate chandelier cascades
metamorphosing glitters of light around the room. Mr. Flitwhitter puts
down his fork and walks over to the window. "Dear me, we're floating
in space..."
Laura Barrett's kalimba-infused singer/songwriter folk
belongs in intergalactically drifting mansions. Her sweeping,
Goldfrapp-esque voice is elegant but wistfully extraterrestrial,
something compounded by the unique melodic tendency employed
throughout Victory Garden. This is a strangely pretty record
with a whimsical flair, gloriously satisfying from track one to track
thirteen.
The journey begins with Narnia-related "Wood Between Worlds," which
could accompany the opening credits to a bittersweet suburban film
tinged with magical elements. A standout track, it only hints at some
of the terrific moments that follow. Elegantly shifting "Spoiler
Alert," supplemented by piano, strings and trombone, is one such
highlight - pretty yet moving, it is one of the more charming songs of
recent times. Also excellent are magical "Escape to the Sun Dome" and
expressive "To the Stars!"
Even the weaker songs are hardly disappointments. Marimba-drenched
"Bluebird" sounds somewhat unpolished but not unmelodic, while "Rien a
Declarer" sounds a tad disorganized but that is - strangely - part of
the appeal! Only the unlisted final track, which
lays all of the album's songs on top of one
another, is truly worthy of complaint. As an experiment it is,
perhaps, interesting; however, in execution it is an annoying five
minutes to endure if you're planning on leaving Victory Garden
to play from start to end.
But let's not end this review on a bad note. Laura Barrett
has produced a marvelously original and
joyfully melodic record with Victory Garden. Recommended for
intergalactic dinner parties and terrestrial listening sessions alike.
laura
barrett's myspace
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Matt Shimmer
[Vitals: 13 tracks, distributed by
the
label,
released September 23, 2008] |
