Reviewer: Kiki Alexander at The Music Edge...review on the web What do Nelly, Conor Oberst (A.K.A. Bright Eyes) and Jenn Lindsay all have in common?! No, it’s not their awesome folk music you silly guys, you!!!! Actually, all three are guilty of releasing two albums in one year. My mother just walked into the kitchen where I am facing the glare of my laptop, listening to Jenn Lindsay’s newest, Perfect Handful, which was released this year along with Uphill Both Ways and Mom goes on in her motherly way of how pretty she thinks Jenn’s voice is and how calming her music is. Indeed, after listening to and reviewing Uphill Both Ways earlier this year, I find Jenn much calmer on Perfect Handful and it’s hard not to compare the two albums to each other. So as pessimistic and vengeful as Uphill was - sounding much like a post-breakup record - Perfect Handful is the other side, sweet and open, she sounds in love, strumming her guitar with a lot less fury and after other female folk tragedies (I shall not name names) Jenn Lindsay is quite refreshing, never selling out to the ever-tempting techno beats and sexier boots. She doesn’t really play into much of an image at all, the multi-instrumentalist’s sound is a grass roots approach of folk basics blended with her sometimes sweet sometimes sultry poetry and her ironic lyrics bring out the awkwardness of every girl in a classy way. She’s not as laugh-out-loud funny on Perfect Handful as she’s been in the past and I have yet to hear a song that makes me want to both bawl and crack up as Uphill’s “Kitchen Sink” but Perfect Handful is much more solid in comparison to the former randomness and I’d like to think that this is a sign Jenn’s finally feeling the security she seemed to be lacking. Perfect Handful’s first track “Got My Baby” is an ode to her true love - her guitar, but the real gem on this record is “Rain.” It’s not a breakup song, or a love song exactly, it’s more of a real-deal-anthem for lovers, “You are made with dependable stitching/ It's an easy tradition to love you more and more/ That's what my heart's for.” The haunting, piano laced “Night Train” and “Don’t You Know” are also true proof of what this girl can do. |