Asthmatic Kitty Rec.
Liz Janes : Poison & Snakes (US,2004)*°° (ok->vg/ex)
By the first couple of tracks I almost misjudged the multitalented Liz Janes. Most of the music and songs on the first tracks of the album for me are too much leaning on recognisable obvious tunes, to too easy self-confident country-rock repetitions-that-have-been-heard too much before, to that kind of music which for me is painfully conservative, hearing this in a musical form or used by a so called Singer/Songwriting Rock artist. She even thanks, like a good old Christian is supposed to, “Good God in heaven”. I thought.. "For God’s sake.” But after the for me preferable forgettable public-pleasing “Wonderkiller” and the still somewhat easy inspiration in poprock on “Streetlight”, the rest of the album seems to be quite good ! “Sets to cleaning” for instance, in a barren blues mode, works well for me, because it’s much more the real thing coming from inside the artist, and not just made for outside the barn or for the watchers on their barstools. It has emotionality in the lower registers, is penetrating, varied and personal in the singing, with a cheap sounding guitar accompaniment, taking the thing down to a raw I-do-what-I-want attitude. Also “Ocean” shows the emotionality in her voice. And the off-beats, of the picked-upfrom-the-streets kind of intuitive drummer, fits with the personal thing quite well too, making it the listener not too much overcomfortable or to something obvious, rhythmically. Liz's voice will do that instead, in a sensitive way, here also with choir arrangements, accompanied by some acoustic and amplified guitar, and some cello arrangements (by Charles Curtis). “Vine” works well too, with voice arrangements, and with electric guitar and drums outbursts. “Deep Sea Diver” surprises again at first, starting with slow, beautiful experimental sounds, before it switches modes with weird voice choruses and amplified guitars peaks. Nice. “Desert” is a peaceful moment, an easy atmospheric instrumental with some background singing to the music, somewhat leaning to jazz-fusion ambient indierock or something. “Go Between” is a fine folkpoprock track, and last track, “Baby Song” with ukulele, sounds like a simple, old country blues lullaby.
The first two tracks don’t reflect to much of Liz's talent, but her interests seem to be varied as well, not all too selectively focused.
