Melissa Auf der Maur is not an overwhelmingly strong vocalist, but high production values--layering, not simply overdubbing vocals--and a knowledge of her range keeps most of the vocals well within enjoyability (and often radio playability as well). My wife didn't appreciate some of the weirder vocal touches, but she's not normally a fan of the occasional dissonance (and or sheer atonality) that Auf der Maur seems to enjoy injecting into some of her music. I generally lean towards "challenging" vocals, so it didn't bother me, especially since most of the time those bits serve the songs well.
One possible reason that even the most radio-friendly songs on this album seem to avoid a cookie-cutter sound is that Auf der Maur self-financed the recording of the entire album, which gave her much more freedom than you might expect from a debut. She was also able to call in a few familiar names to help record it, including James Iha (Smashing Pumkins/A Perfect Circle), John Stainer (Helmet/Tomahawk), and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss). Homme, along with Steve Durand (a member of Auf der Maur's first band, Tinker) contributed some songwriting to the album as well.
All in all, I would definitely recommend this CD to anyone who heard about it and thought "that might be interesting;" I don't think you'll be disappointed. For everyone else: often a CD labeled as "interesting" isn't pleasant to listen to, but this one manages to be both, which is a statement of the musicianship of the songwriter and the execution in the studio.
I'm still not sure if I want to use a star system for my Blogcritics reviews, but if I did I'd give this one a solid *** (out of 4).
Article comments
1 - particleman
interesting. thanks for the review. i always liked Melissa more than Courtney. Did you catch the Hole Unplugged show back in the 90's? It's actually not bad, and Melissa looks pretty hot...
2 - Steve Gigl
And thanks for reading it! For some reason Hole never really interested me
musically, but I can understand what you mean about acoustic sets: I'm not
sure if it evens up the rough edges or what, but it seems like a lot of bands sound better than usual when they do acoustic sets (some sound worse, though).
3 - Jim Carruthers
I haven't heard the record yet, but Melissa was interviewed last week on the CBC radio on "This Morning". Her father, Nick, was a Montreal city councillor and journalist, and anchor point at several Crescent Street bars (there's a great Aislin cartoon about Nick asking a tween Melissa for political advice at a bar).
4 - mike
i love melissa. she's very naughty.
5 - Lono
I am interested in listening. I have seen her perform (with the Pumpkins) and she was a million times better bassist than Darcy. She is also really really hot. I wish it wasn't so juvenile and base... but those are my real motives.