Spectacular!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
author: Spencer Kocher
Soothing, calm, relaxing! great vocals, great lyrics, and great songs!
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Liz Phair meets your Mom.
author: Christopher
When most indie artists include a cover song on a record it usually is the highlight of the sequence. You know the song already, the band puts a new spin on it, it sounds cool, and it has a way of making the original material on the record seem blase. Not the case here. Erika's version of "Dancing in the Dark" is well done, but it pales in comparison to her own material (on a related note, I also think that her last effort, "29 1/2", was a superior post-9/11 record to The Boss' - whether it meant to be or not). I've been listening to Erika's stuff for a number of years and I honestly can't believe how her work just gets better and better with each new recording/song. The title track might just be the most beautiful song she's ever recorded... all at once I want to co-opt it as a lullaby for my own child AND have Erika come to my house and sing it to ME as I drift into the sweetest dreams. Thus, the short version of the review: Liz Phair meets your Mom. This is the beautiful complexity of Erika's songbook - songs like "Mr. Wrong" and "Here Comes Love Again" are erotic in the same muted-yet-brash, almost-tongue-in-cheek style that you loved on "Exile in Guyville"..... but then songs like the aformentioned "All the Plastic Animals" just make you wish she was your mother. Disturbing? On the contrary, it is strangely comforting. And maybe that's the best way to describe her dissonant, yet undeniably embraceable, brand of indie rock. You're going to feel conflicted. But you're going to like it.
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This rocks.
author: Adam Cantor
This cd is awesome. Lyrically, and musically it is just great. It is refreshing to hear someone sing so beautifully from the heart.
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nothing plastic about this album
author: Summer
All the Plastic Animals showcases Simonian's great lyrical sense of the vulnerable and the wry. It's a quiet, low-fi rocker, the kind you listen to late at night, driving home, or in your room with only a lamp on. My favorite songs are "Pretty Good Wife" and "Battered and Bitter," two back to back gems that speak to the tender, salty wounds in us all.
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