Tonight, December 14th, Austin folk-rock/pop singer Michelle Anthony will perform at The Saxon Pub for the release of her third album, Tornadoes. The doors open at 6 PM. The album is very good, and AME has gotten to stew with it for a while. Here are our thoughts.
Attractive female pop singers are a dime a dozen in the music industry, so it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Michelle Anthony knows this, of course, which is why Tornadoes works so much better than many of the releases by Anthony’s less-iconoclastic contemporaries. The album eschews the MIDI-overproduction that kill most modern pop albums for a rich collection of instruments and sounds, all buoyed by Anthony’s smoky, far-ranging voice.
“Spare Me” is a swaggering opening number that melds razor-toothed, distorted guitars, effusive shaker percussion and numerous, cascading Michelle-on-Anthony harmonies. The finale of the track is an eruption of slide guitar that feels a little like Billy Corgan’s work on Adore. Anthony’s lyric is as sophisticated as the arrangement: while the lyrics are telling someone to bug off, there are shades of guilt and an ambiguity that suggests the song’s narrator might not be as reliable or independent as he/she would think.
Like most music out of Austin, rock guitar takes a lot of spotlight on the record. But it isn’t the by-the-numbers distorted pentatonic scales that are so cliched coming from this city. The strings are full of twilight ambience and are informed by Anthony’s cosmic, ineffable voice and lyrical themes. Grant Tye’s lead work is a major highlight.
Anthony composed all of Tornadoes‘ songs by herself or with a few collaborators, and the songsmithing is composed and structurally sound on all ten tracks. The songs have meat on their bones but never outlast their welcome. The swaying between Anthony’s verses, choruses and bridges allow her to play with the melody throughout each song. Often this leads to blossoming climaxes of startling power, like on the piano-led, bruised “Yellow Harmony.”
There are no duff cuts on Tornadoes, and Anthony’s fans will pick and choose for themselves which are the highlights. One of my picks are the title track, which mixes a deft metaphor with a performance and production that recalls the best work of Aimee Mann. “January Singers” is particularly epic and disarming. Anthony’s lyrics capture nostalgia with a novelist’s attention to detail.
“Permanent” mixes the rollicking singer-songwriter feel of Carol King with a spastic, submerged guitar. The chorus soars effortlessly and tacks on a stick-in-your-head vocal refrain. “Lights of Chicago,” the record’s finale, features production effects that groan like the Earth’s shifting tectonic plates. Anthony’s words make the song an appropriate choice for the closer – “take this last song and say goodnight” – but it’s more than a gimmick. “Lights of Chicago” is a compendium of the moods and topics Michelle has been ruminating on the entire album. She doesn’t leave with any answers to her questions, but a sense of transcendence is hinted at before the song scrambles itself (and the album) into oblivion.
As I have been writing this review I’ve listened to Tornadoes over again, and songs that didn’t hit me as hard the first time around suddenly make my hairs stand on end. While there are immediate virtues available on the first listen, additional spins of Tornadoes reveal depths and secrets. This album is a grower and an instant pleasure in the same package. Michelle Anthony’s third record dropped right on the tail end, but it is one of the best Austin albums released in 2010.
Final Grade: ****1/2 (out of five)
If you’ve heard Tornadoes and like it as much as AME does, head down to the Saxon Pub tonight for Michelle’s CD Release Show!
