a wide-ranging folk-rock collection
author: Chris Roth, Talking Leaves: A Journal of Our Evolving Ecological
Eileen's new album, Spark, features a wide-ranging set of songs. Several, like I'm in Love with the World and Always, are affirmations and supplications: Sea turtle, swimming gracefully / Knowing, knowing, knowing to be free / Great Honu, ancient mystery / I'm honored to be with you in this gentle sea / Teach me floating / Teach me your ways / Teach me to be free / Teach me to be here / Always. The songs concerning relationship--like Call on Me, Do Me Any Good, and Love Is Fickle--move through a variety of moods. The countrified Body to the Worms is an upbeat plea to be buried in the ground. The slower Maggie's Song is a fingerpicked welcoming song for a baby girl. Handy Little Invention asks a driver to use his turn signals, presenting Eileen at her most sardonically yet lightheartedly humorous.
My favorite tracks are the sultry, electrified 15 Minute Crush, the beautiful fingerpicked Sweet and Rough, and Open Up, which, with just vocals and hand-clapping, conjures up the same magic to be found on the CD Circle of Women (reviewed in TL 8.3). Overall, I tend to like Eileen's more acoustic numbers best, and found parts of this album fuller in sound than I would have preferred. However, I know that this is a matter of personal taste, and some listeners prefer more production than I do.
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