It takes artistic courage to be this lyrically honest and musically
experimental. Shimmerplanet is a collection of artists but mainly
songwriter Soren Anders and vocalist Carolyn Eufrasio. They trade off
on lead vocals. The music is filled with strings and deep grooves and a
bit of playfulness (Anders is credited with, among other instruments, a
toy piano). The lyrics sound like Anders passed every high school vocab
test with flying colors. From the opening track “Silence of Midnight”:
It’s getting late and I am exacerbated ...
I’ve debated and debated this debasement; no abatement, I hate it ...
If every song were like this, the album would be extremely pretentious.
But Anders shows a sense of humor quite often, even if it’s a sardonic
one. My favorite track is “Easy,” sung by Carolyn, a look at love
connections in the modern world set to a hot Latin beat and flavored
with dancing string arrangements:
I put my picture on a public site
It went live only last night
Today my box is full! My love life is on a roll!
Can’t wait ‘til Wednesday for the latest copy ...
Every song has a different approach, from the funky/R&B “On My
List” to the beat-poetry feel of the delicate “Cool Web.” I liked the
lovely classical composition entitled “Everyone Says You Love Me But
You.”
Again and again, I kept opening the CD booklet to double-check the
lyrics to make sure they were saying what I thought they were saying.
Anders is a true poet, and his strongest lyrical work shows in
“Author,” a song about wanting to literally rewrite his childhood. I
love the line, “If you were a character, I’d make you minor, a
paragraph from hello to goodbye.”
This is an album of intelligent compositions -- a few radio-friendly, the rest boldly not so. Strongly recommended.
Publication:
Indie-Music.com
Publication Date:
Mar 10 2007
