Christina
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so lovely
I remember when I just got this album in the mail, I was so excited. I popped it in my cd player and I was in heaven. :) every one of Jenna's songs are perfect and I want to hear them over and over. the first time I heard Holy Moses, it made me cry. just so beautiful. I'm so glad I own this album.
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Natalie Herman
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Bound to be a smash!
Listening to Jenna Nicholls’s debut CD is an experience akin to perusing a pop-up book; from the moment the music opens on the first song, “Just How Much,” Nicholls paints pictures that seem to dance before your eyes as the music plays on. These pictures are drawn not as much by what she is singing but by the way she is singing it.
Ten years in the making, Curled Up Toes in Red Mary Janes, brings the listener a refreshingly cool and confident Nicholls. Although she sashays through her songs, she maintains a childlike innocence that complements rather than negates her sultry sensualism. The title, which comes from an early song of Nicholls’s, furthers the picture of naivety unbound and struggling with coming of age.
Her songs evoke the early-Americana time period which influenced her musical style. Her approach to the music is minimalist – her voice is definitely her vehicle, and it is going to take her places.
The majority of the tracks sound heartening and optimistic with a definite leaning toward a simpler time. However, her revealing lyrics, as on the incongruous “Passport 25” -- about a woman who is at the end of her very self -- demonstrate that Nicholls is not simply another disposable songstress, but that she has considerable range as both a musician and as a writer.
If there was a doubt left, Nicholls blows that away on the following track, “Hallelujah.” A startling contrast to the acoustically bare-bones songs, “Hallelujah” roars in with an explosion of instruments and a gigantic voice that seems to stem from those curled-up toes.
In “Dirty Old Town,” Nicholls recalls a spirit of fealty to one’s place of origin not unlike the Springsteen hometown anthems that defined his early career.
Michael Brunnock, to whom Jenna lent her vocal talents on his 2007 solo debut, So I Do, returns the favor to appear as harmonizing vocal on “Holy Moses.” Each artist is phenomenal in his or her own right, but when they two combine voices, it causes an exothermic reaction that has the capability of liquefying the very bones in your body. Despite its obvious power, Jenna’s voice is so sweet and true that even monosyllabic words find it difficult to tear themselves away from her and linger with her for as long as they can.
Nicholls ends her CD with the dulcet ode, “Winter,” featuring a soulful tenor saxophone. Although Nicholls’s imagery is largely auditory, her lyrics paint distinct pictures as well: “Knit me a sweater from the last threads of summer. . .” She chooses a beautiful, stirring and settling piece to send the listener on.
Our “sweet consolation” is that it is not likely that we will have to wait another ten years for the follow-up.
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