Domingo 26 Jul 2009, 12:15
Sara Bareilles - Little Voice
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee277/innerearpromo/album%20covers/littlevoice.jpg
Tracklist:
1. Love Song
2. Vegas
3. Bottle It Up
4. One Sweet Love
5. Come Round Soon
6. Morningside
7. Between The Lines
8. Love On The Rocks
9. City
10. Many The Miles
11. Fairytale
12. Gravity
Sara Bareilles returns with her major label debut. After her independent release in 2004, she now has a full album with fine pop songs called "Little Voice". She re-recorded some of the songs from her previous album and added some great new ones. Breakthrough guaranteed?
The album starts off with lead single Love Song which pokes fun of love songs, especially if you know the story behind it. The catchy, poppy melody and flirty vocals are a recipe for success and Love Song will no doubt be the girl's breakthrough. Vegas is also an infectious pop song, with a rough edge that I really like. It makes it sound fresh and exciting. Could be a good follow-up single.
And the jazzy, at times even funky Bottle It Up is one of my favorites on the album. The uptempo song with a catchy nature and breezy vocals makes me want to move and sing along and the passion in the vocals combines perfectly with the nice piano arrangement.
Next up are two older songs, One Sweet Love & Come Round Soon. They also appeared on "Careful Confessions". Where the former was a little bland at times on the first record, the tweaking and better production make the song come out much better on "Little Voice". Come Round Soon was a song I surprisingly liked on Sara's debut in 04 and the new version is a little slicker and commercially much more attractive. Good single candidate.
The rawness and passion on Morningside are very cool and the song has a strong arrangement. Good energy. She paces down on Between The Line which is a mid-tempo piano ballad that has a lot of feeling. She doesn't make the mistake of going to slow or too gentle but she keeps the right pace and right feel for the song to shine.
Love on the Rocks didn't change that much from the original version on "Careful Confessions". And yes, I still dig it. And when you listen to City you'd almost think she read my review of her former album, because she did exactly the right thing to make this song so much better. Better mixed, performed with more conviction and a few slight tweaks here and there make City the song that shows the potential I knew was in there somewhere.
Sara Bareilles saved another gem for us. Many The Miles is one heck of a song. Sara Bareilles is an excellent singer and has a good feel for how to accentuate the song at the right times. Very convincing piece of music here.
The album ends with the two strongest tracks off her debut album. And these new versions are possibly even stronger. Fairytale has even more passion and energy and Gravity just keeps convincing.
Since her debut, Bareilles developed herself and grew into a confident and convincing songwriter and she's always been a girl with strong vocals. "Little Voice" is an album that will create a lot of buzz and will proved the step up to the big leagues for this very talented musician.