Sacred fire.
Despite three covers of well-known songs Rain Perry’s seven self-penned songs attract attention on her third CD. The really very unusually titled opener The Compartmentalized Thing is a cleverly structured, swinging song about selling your emotions on stage, complete with surprising a rock guitar and infectious horns. Perry phrases longingly around the beat in an clear mix of disbelief and desire. It is a characteristic example of her evocative singing, also aubidle in her other songs, with influences from folk, soul, rhythm ‘n’ blues and rock. Bob Seger’s classic Till It Shines does not offer her talent that space, although she sings it like she means it.
In Red Green White Blue Perry sings how she wants to catch the beauty of a valley in a refrain, but her lazy vocals also evoke that in the verses over a mid-tempo melody with a languidly soloing fiddle.
In many of her other songs Perry sings extremely soulful, with her role as sensual, divorced mother with a date in So You’re The Muse as pinnacle. That song is full of musical tension from the beginning, also due to the sparsely dosed organ and guitar parts. Songs about a sectarion reverend and an obsessed fan of Keanu Reeves are just as strong, just like three semi-acoustic ballads, among which Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. Perry proves to be able to sing these with a lot of atmosphere too and thus proves to be an extremely convincing singer.
***1/2