Love Is the Way
- Soft Rock/Folk/Jazz
- 2009
- Buy the CD
Reviewed by Lee Zimmerman
Happily, then, Reader’s latest album may be just the thing to boost her to the big time. With a title that could clearly hold sway, Love Is the Way offers up yet another set of beautifully beguiling ballads and gently caressing melodies. As always, Reader’s collaborator Boo Hewerdine – a similarly gifted singer/songwriter in his own right – provides much of the material, but here she also branches out, offering rare yet graceful covers of Fleetwood Mac’s "Never Going Back Again" and Sammy Kahn’s "It’s Magic," both of which fit her airbrushed palette perfectly. Acoustic guitars, accordion, piano and snare brushes provide a gentle backdrop to Reader’s sensuous vocals, light and lithe with a hint of torch song inflection. Gracefully navigating a narrow divide that merges classic and contemporary, Reader adds old school charms on the Vaudeville-style "Dandelion" and sets up an after hours atmosphere on the title track, dimming the lights and basking in the afterglow of undulating desire.
Mostly though, this is an album filled with wistful pleasantries, lilting rhythms and an unhurried pace. Reader’s unabashed effervescence makes this a mood piece of a different sort, one that waltzes along with an air of nonchalance seemingly unaffected by everyday concerns. It’s the kind of idyllic approach that’s too often dismissed these days, particularly by those who feel they need to weigh in on all the world’s issues. Indeed, if Love Is the Way seems to sound naïve, or drawn from a starry-eyed perspective, so be it. In Reader’s world happiness and happenstance seem to go hand in hand.
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