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Duncan Sheik - Whisper House
| Avclub |
| A few years ago, Duncan Sheik interrupted his thriving career as a tasteful neo-folkie—pumping out heartfelt fodder for TV-drama closing montages—and devoted his energies to co-writing a rock-heavy musical adaptation of the scandalous 19th-century German play Spring Awakening. Both the musical and Sheik’s score won Tonys, and the success of that endeavor led to Whisper House, a work-in-progress show about regretful ghosts and the stressed-out humans they haunt. The stage version of Whisper House (co-written with Kyle Jarrow, and originally conceived by actor-director Keith Powell) has yet to debut, but 10 of its songs are now available, performed in collaboration with singer-keyboardist Holly Brook. Sounding like a hybrid of epic, Frames-like angst-rock and unabashedly earnest musical theater, Whisper House is simultaneously more satisfyingly rich in sound than Sheik’s early work and more off-puttingly story-driven. A good litmus test for listeners will be the rousing showtune “The Tale Of Solomon Snell.” If the song’s outsized characters and jaunty melody turn you off, then Whisper House isn’t for you. But if Sheik’s full-bodied orchestration and gothic narrative hold you rapt, then there are nine more equally strong songs where that came from....full text |
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| Allmusic |
| A dalliance with Broadway reinvigorated Duncan Sheik, winning him a Tony and opening up the new artistic avenues he pursues on Whisper House, his first album since the award-winning production of Spring Awakening and his 2006 LP, White Limousine. Whisper House falls somewhere between those two extremes, being a dramatic piece that plays a lot like a classic '70s singer/songwriter album, especially when the opener, "It's Better to Be Dead," unfolds quietly yet dramatically in the tradition of early Elton John. Whisper House rarely gets this grand, either in its production or its intent. It's an intimate affair, with the many duets with singer/songwriter Holly Brook playing like overheard conversations, but as carefully considered as the narrative is, what makes Whisper House work is that it functions as a pop album. It can be broken up into small, digestible pieces -- the ten tunes are either delicate folk numbers or surprisingly sprightly pop tunes -- and it can be appreciated as a concise collection of catchy straightforward songs that build upon each other. Indeed, among Sheik's albums this ranks among the best, showcasing his subtle skills and sense of quiet adventure in ways his sometimes fussy earlier records never did....full text |
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| Pastemagazine |
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Six albums in, Duncan Sheik deserves credit for shrewdly repositioning a career that could have been relegated to one-hit wonder status. That hit—the ubiquitous '90s mainstay "Barely Breathing"—bears little resemblance to anything on Whisper House, an album that sees Sheik continue down the musical theatre path after penning the book to the incredibly successful, Tony-Award winning musical Spring Awakening. In fact, songs from Whisper House will anchor an upcoming musical of same name. The focused purpose actually benefits the album as a whole—Whisper House is a cohesive statement, both lyrically and musically. Heavy on atmosphere, the album evokes stark imagery from its collection of macabre, melancholic stories of a haunted lighthouse by the sea. "Secret places, stolen gazes, soft exchanges / All you ever dreamed," Sheik sings on "How It Feels," a lyric that fittingly describes the childlike curiosity that permeates each song....full text |
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