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Review
Millan means, of course, that’s it’s “night” music. If in daylight this album just sits there like a wet pudding, it makes more sense when played as you wrestle with nocturnal angst, as the ghosts in her voice gradually exert their frail but insistent presence.
Like her 2006 debut Honey From the Tombs, it’s delicate, intimate, folk-based. All that brouhaha of Broken Social Scene and wide-screen melodrama of Stars? Forget about it. It’s as if that’s her day job, and this is the “real” her. Some will find it dull as dishwater – it’s anything but dynamic – but those willing to hang in and soak up the sullen might find its melancholy heart shimmers in similar terrain to Bon Iver or Smog. And there’s a certain Canadian-ness to this strain of female voice: in places it echoes Feist or even Mary Margaret O’Hara, whether it wants to or not.
Her own songs are brittle: Bruised Ghosts, with its says-it-all title, is a bereft neo-waltz. Lost Compass is stark, keening. Her cover versions are more interesting. She takes Richard Hawley’s Run for Me and strips it down until it’s wraith-like. And her reading of (Stars tour-mates) Death Cab for Cutie’s I Will Follow You into the Dark wilfully removes any residual passion, moving it towards generic country. Such understatement must be intentional, though you wonder if she just fell in love with the title then didn’t know where to go with it. Day to Day, written by friend Jenny Whiteley, perks things up with a beefy, minimalist backbeat.
There is a support group of cameo-ing guest musicians, from Stars’ Evan Cranley to The Stills’ Liam O’Neil to Feist herself, but this is her whispered confessional, reticent and (at barely half an hour) brief. It’s underwhelming, which perhaps she’d take as a compliment. --Chris Roberts
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Customer Reviews
The same high rating stands for this one as well.
She truly is one of the finest voices to come out of the Noughties.
Apart from that the songs and lyrics are wonderful too and the playing on this album is immaculate.
One can easily play both albums one after another and still not get tired of this great lady.
I can only urge you to buy it. It'll be a fantastic listening experience.
You have my word on that.
it is good to have her back inhabiting territory all
her own with a second solo album 'Masters Of The Burial'.
There are eleven tracks for us to consider here.
The original material (seven songs) is beautifully simple
and simply beautiful; the four covers are sensitively and
imaginatively managed, especially Richard Hawley's fine
composition 'Run For Me', stripped down to nothing but
her fine voice accompanied by a plaintively reverberating
electric guitar. A tiny piece of minimalist magic.
The enchantment extends still further in stunning songs
such as 'Towers', a folksy tapestry of charming intertwining
musical ideas carrying Ms Millan's warm vocal tones and subtle
harmonic inventions; the bare bones (voice and drums) of her
interpretation of Jenny Whitley's song 'Day To Day'; the melancholic
flow of the stunning ensemble piece 'Bury This' and the captivatingly
stark miniature 'Lost Compass'.
Final track 'Bound' brings the album to a memorable close.
A sparse country ballad, enchanced by some wonderfully
flakey fiddle playing from Jesse Zubot, which falls away
into an inconclusive void in the final bars.
A vivid example of the value of saving the best till last!
Ms Millan's unhurried and guileless approach to her art is
refreshing. The friends and musicians with whom she has
surrounded herself to realise this project all perform their
respective roles sensitively and with consummate restraint.
A richly diverse collection of low-key little wonders.
Recommended.
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