Rating: NNN
Back when piano-plunking chanteuse Sarah Slean teamed up with Hawksley Workman for her major-label debut, the hyper-dramatic pair created an album that sounded like it’d been unearthed from a fin-de-siècle cabaret. Too bad Slean recruited producers Dan “New Deal” Kurtz and Pete Prilesnik for the follow-up. It’s not that they’re hacks – Prilesnik had a hand in making Sarah Harmer’s You Were Here a global success. But instead of focusing on Slean’s idiosyncratic baroque style, they aim for crunchier radio-friendly hits, bringing Billy Talent’s Ian D’Sa and melancholic songster Howie Beck along for the ride. Traces of the Slean of yore remain – the title track has hints of Sweet Ones, and Lucky Me plays to the strengths of her creakily operatic voice – but there are too many cheesy alterna-guitar effects that already sound dated.