songbird
Michelle Lewis already recorded the first of her two albums and two EPs in 2004, but she is still unknown, alhough the American singer-songwriter also performed in Europe.
That is surprising for anyone who listens to the ten carefully arranged songs on her third album, because she mixes folk and classic pop to stylish melancholy in seven self-penned songs, two written together with singer-sonwriter Robbie Hecht and an unexpected, but perfectly fitting Springsteen cover.
Opener ‘That’s what they say’ sets the tone with a medium tempo melody which is just as stately as it is careful. In that song Lewis’ Farfisa organ, Nate Gonxalez’ subduedly complaining accordion an co-producer Anthony J. Resta’s drivng drums determine the atmosphere.
Although the music is lightly melancholic, Lewis’ desperation hits home hard.
That same despair shines through in the title song that follows, although she tries to encourage herself in ‘Push on’, written together with Hecht. In Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the dark’ and ‘How’ she stills sounds anguished, but starting with ‘In love again’ a reconciliation between Lewis and her lover seems to come about.
Although she wrote this song with Hecht too, the melody and the chords were cleary dyed with the same paint as Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Never going back’, albeit that the lyrics are more optimistic.
In two of the remaining songs she also avows her renewed believe in her lover.
In the other two, thematically not connected songs she sings about her grandmother’s hard life and the grieve that her passing causes her.
Thus Michelle Lewis created a string of pearls by crafting universal emotions from her pain.
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Ruud Heijjer