Rating: NNN
Serena Ryder won the 2008 Juno Award for new artist of the year, and with this new disc seems poised to follow that promise to easy-listening radio success.
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It’s a rootsy collection of straightforward pop tunes focused on that distinctive throaty warble that garnered her so much attention early in her career.
Recorded in the studio where Fleetwood Mac laid down the tracks to Rumors, Is It O.K. suffers at times from setting its sights too narrowly down the middle of the road.
Much of her personality as a vocalist has been suppressed in favour of radio-friendly innocuousness, a tactic that may lead to mainstream success but also prevents this collection from making a serious impression.
Ryder plays the Mod Club November 19.
