Send "Sarah Slean " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Montrealgazette |
 “A bit of pain will help you suffer when you hurt / for real.” No, that’s not your dad. It’s Blink, back from the brink.Back from genuine tragedy and near-tragedy that punctuated the band’s hiatus and may even have hastened their reunion. When one member of your retinue dies and your drummer almost does, even punks recognize the days are short. Punk? We should disabuse ourselves of that notion before taking another step. Adulthood’s potential gain is not punk’s loss, because Blink and their compadres were never particularly punk in anything other than emotional age and riff speed. In Neighborhoods, there will be electro touches and arena reach. Mainly, there will be an attempt to Grow Up the music, with the unanswered question: Will fans want a Blink-182 that cares? Well, they did on the self-titled 2003 album, so Neighborhoods may not be that much of a stretch. Here they are now with a Ghost on the Dancefloor, opening the album with emotionally charged disco-pop. Natives is a buzz-swarm of hookery. The shivery, electrofied Up All Night is an arena anthem not about partying, but demons. Likewise After Midnight, with its troubled lyric “I kinda like the little rush you get / when you’re standing close to death.” By the way, have you ever noticed how un-rock the vocalists are in this band? All of them. There’s a kind of blankness to the singing – a recognizable, branded blankness, mind – that makes transition easier. Snake Charmer opens as a cruncher before settling into something more haunted; there’s a shadow in every song. There’s Heart’s All Gone Interlude, more haunted moodscape, before Heart’s All Gone and Wishing Well attempt to recapture the old fans with a fusion of speed and something like depth. There are Depeche inflections in Love Is Dangerous, and Fighting the Gravity is a leap leftward into soundscape. Even If She Falls is engagingly concerned with a girl’s potential fall into love, which may be the most mature thing they’ve done, despite those vocals. There’s a different kind of urgency now, one about something more than getting your pants off as fast as possible. ...full text |
| Themanitoban |
| In an age where the compact disc is in rapid decline, not many artists would have the inclination to release a double album, Sarah Slean did on Sept. 27 of this year, one entitled Land & Sea. Produced with help from Joel Plaskett, Slean mixes solid and liquid with the two discs, managing to create a unique listening experience that caters to everyone’s tastes. Land is the first disc in the album. As you might expect from the title, the songs on this disc feature strong, solid backbeats that serve as a base for the treble and melody. Slean’s tracks on this disc are sometimes bouncy, sometimes more laid back, but always keep you involved and engaged with the music. I was hit with the urge to either sing along with the lyrics or get up and dance around (I ended up doing both). Slean launches right into it with the first track “Life,” a rousing song that plunges you right into the disc without regret. The rest of the tracks on this disc give us a similar feeling. By the end, as Slean ends with “Society Song,” you will feel incredibly glad that you took the time to listen to this album. On the second disc, Sea, Slean employs melodies reminiscent of ocean surf and the rise and fall of tides. Melodies and harmonies take precedence over dense bass and percussion, with heavier use of piano and orchestra in many of the songs. If you close your eyes and just listen, you can almost feel yourself rising and falling with the waves and smell the salt in the air. The order of the tracks is pretty well thought out on this disc as well. If you graphed the tempos of each song on one line you’d see a wave, rising and falling. A similar pattern is seen within each individual song as well....full text |
| Popmatters |
| The earnest female singer/songwriter is dead. I blame Alanis Morissette, and maybe Shawn Colvin. Back in the ‘90s, female singer/songwriters flourished, dominating radio and video airwaves. People actually looked forward to hearing the latest torments of Sarah Harmer, Sarah McLachlan, or Ani Defranco. Now, such self-indulgent exploits are considered “uncool” due mainly to the influence of ironic hipster culture. No one wants to hear what singers are really feeling. Expressive singer/songwriters have been passed over for technically proficient musicians, who consider expression to be nothing more than a cool beat backed by some nonsensical and unintelligible clever quip of the English language. Well, Sarah Slean hasn’t given up hope, even if her fan base and hopeful break into the mainstream have been steadily dwindling. Slean is a unique talent considering she is classically trained as both a composer and a mezzo soprano opera singer with an affinity towards pop music. Her 1997 Indie EP cassette Universe, released via consignment with Toronto’s HMV superstore, earned Slean a major label contract with Universal Music. But instead of jumping right into writing and recording her first major label release, she convinced Universal to fund another Indie release, only this time a full-length effort. The reason? She wanted to progress as a pop songstress and the only way she thought she could was if she had more time and more experience to get it right. When she finally did jump into her major label release (2002’s Night Bugs) it became very clear, very quickly that she would be as popular as Rufus Wainwright or Tori Amos, capturing the hearts of those whose allegiance fell somewhere in between those two more prominent artists. However, unlike the latter, she tried only once more to appeal to the masses (2004’s Day One), until finally opting to pave her own musical path. Land & Sea is Sarah Slean’s fourth major label album, fifth overall. In between each album release, Slean has dived into recording cover albums with Indie jazz groups, starred in musicals, wrote classical movements for a string quartet, and graced the contemporary classical music scene with her mezzo soprano vocal stylings. She doesn’t sit still, preferring to approach her music as art projects and aural installations as opposed to simplified pop records. Land & Sea, a double album consisting of Land (a pop record) and Sea (a classical-inspired record), sees Slean dipping into both musical pools. Land is the radio friendly bread-and-butter of the album, with off-beat pop ditties such as “Life”, “Set it Free” or the album highlight “Amen”. Sarah was never one for sorrowful tunes about love lost or self-pity, instead opting to “look on the bright side” or offer rude awakenings to individuals who blame everyone but themselves for their plight, and this collection of 18 original tunes is no exception. Also, Slean rarely sings about herself. I know, this contradicts what I write at the beginning of this review, but her storytelling is so well conveyed and dripping with empathy that you feel Slean pouring herself into every single line, even if you know she’s singing about someone else. ...full text |
Sarah Slean lyrics
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