FEATURED REVIEW............................................................26 JUN 2006
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Artist:
TRES CHICAS |
When Lynn Blakely (Glory Fountain), Caitlin Cary (Whiskeytown) and Tonya Lamm (Hazeldine) teamed up for Sweetwater in 2004, their sideproject supergroup was supposed to be a one-off endeavor. Would that it had been. While Sweetwater was one of the unexpected highlights of 2004, Tres Chicas' latest release, Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl, is one of the overhyped disappointments of 2006.
As the recent flurry of positive press will attest, however, the disc does have its defenders. As near as we can figure, the champions of Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl are taken with its "beauty" (and a "beautiful" album it certainly is, in the worst possible sense). With its cloying harmonies, sickly sweet arrangements, and mindless piffle passing as poetry, the Chicas' sophomore effort is more likely to appeal to fans of adult contemporary than alt.country aficionados (and, alas, there's no accounting for those who've traded in their sensibilities for the soft paunch of suburban middle age).
Particularly noteworthy is the preponderance of poor writing on the album. We hardly know where to begin. Take this line, for example, from the we-hesitate-to-say-aptly-entitled "Red": "I'm as red as the red of a barn painted red." Jesus, the girls must really have struggled over that simile. (The self-deprecating "Poetry's sh*t and the best that I've written will all be forgot when I die" a few lines later seems more of an accurate assessment than a Keatsian lament.)
Unfortunately, the trio is no more adept when it comes to metaphors. Caitlin Cary's "400 Flamingos" opens:
"Your heart is 400 flamingos,
Pink and preening in the water.
Your heart is seven satin ribbons,
On a festooned favorite farmer's daughter."
This is clumsy bordering on the absurd. Even if we give her a few points for having mastered alliteration--and for finding the word "festooned" in her trusty thesaurus-- she's still not passing the class.
When they aren't fumbling over figurative language, Tres Chicas manage to churn out some first-rate schmaltz. The refrain from "All the Shade Trees in Bloom" runs something like this:
"I want somethin' beautiful, I want somethin' true,
Want everything I want, maybe with you,
I want the sun, I want the stars, the light of the moon,
And all the shade trees in bloom."
Now isn't that just precious?
The album's most unpalatable hunk of cheeze, however, is probably "Stone Love Song" [REAL AUDIO CLIP]. "Our love's as lovely as a path in the moonlight / Our love's as precious as a star," Cary sings, accompanied by cheezy guitar runs, a hokey woodwind, and her two chanting compatriots.
The disc does have a couple of redeeming moments--we liked "Man of the People," and "Drop Me Down" is innocuous. On the whole, however, the band seems set on impersonating Sarah McLachlan, churning out bland, unimaginitive imagery as if the future of LITE-FM depended upon it.
In summation: The musical equivalent of a Wonderbread fluffnutter: it's sweet as hell, sticks to the roof of your mouth, and damn well might choke you. Four cheezeballs.
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A NOTE ON THE RATING SYSTEM:
5 CHEEZEBALLS = UNLISTENABLE SCHLOCK
3 CHEEZEBALLS = A DIFFICULT SLOG
1 CHEEZEBALL = THE ODD FORGIVABLE MISSTEP
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