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I don't know if it's a statement of purpose, but when Jennifer O'Connor sings "I'm gonna drink black coffee all night long / until I write the perfect song," it's pretty darn believable. And she comes pretty darn close on this collection of 11 self-penned tunes. O'Connor is a New York-based country-tinged rock singer-songwriter who did time in the Atlanta music scene, and with her backing band being from Richmond, Virginia, there's a definite southern drawl in the music that might otherwise put me off. But there's something about O'Connor's just-right songwriting that transcends my genre apprehensions. Besides, I do like the sound of pedal steel guitar, and there's some really gorgeous work on that instrument on this album.
Often the production on this disc achieves a full-band rock sound, and occasionally there are some beautiful atmospherics, like on the title track and on "Why Don't You Do?", which has a Kristin Hersh kind of feel to it. The focus definitely remains on O'Connor's unadorned, weighty alto and plainspoken, honest lyrics, though. The overall effect is like Aimee Mann without so much irony, Mazzy Star without the drugginess, or Liz Phair without the whorishness (and more talent), depending on the tempo and arrangement of the song. There's even an echo of Stephin Merritt, as the track "Yer Copout" comes across like a melancholy Magnetic Fields song. These similarities are merely coincidental, though; the album never feels derivative or imitative.
On my first listen to this disc my reaction was, "hmm, pretty good singer-songwriter stuff," and I didn't really expect it to go much deeper than that, but the next couple of times through I really started to get hooked in. There are a couple of tracks on here that aren't quite up to the standard of the rest of the disc, and "Million Dollar Smile" is an unwelcome misstep into heavy grunge-rock territory, but overall it's a dark horse of an album that took me by surprise and ended up taking my breath away without presuming, being fancy, or trying to impress, but by possessing its own simple, straightforward merits. (mike.06.05)
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