Label: unsigned

Producer: Andrea Perry

Release Date: 2006

You know how in magazines such as Q, Mojo, Uncut etc, you’ll always find an almost seasonal ‘Best or Greatest or Top 100 songs of all time? The thing is, the top five in any of these listings ALWAYS includes The Beach Boys ‘Good Vibrations’ or ‘God Only Knows’ and at least two or three Beatle songs like ‘All you need is love’ ‘Strawberry Fields’ or ‘Yesterday’. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong there… EXCEPT that Andrea Perry’s ‘If I lose You’ from ‘Saturday Morning Sweet Shoppe’ should be among these too. It is, without a doubt, one of the best pop songs ever written and I expect to pay thousands of pounds for the handwritten lyrics one day at Sotherbys!!!

Now… it’s been quite a while since the rather amazing SMSS was released and I’ve been tapping my fingers and toes and watching the blogs regularly for news of Andrea’s follow up album for far too long. Rivers of stars, Ladies and Gentlemen of Q, Mojo, Uncut and the rest of the planet, is Andrea Perrys recent release and I’m dying to play it, review it, and see what’s happened to the girl’s trip across the light fantastic since! Ok it’s in the CD drive… let’s see what happens when I press the little arrow thing..

Fly opens this long awaited album up and within the first few bars we're back to that velveteen vocal and incredibly tight harmony that makes Andrea 'our' Andrea. With a nice dreamy, sauntering pace, the percussion and guitars provide the path for the sixties/seventies flavoured vocals and lyrics to follow. Andrea's production approach is flawless and as the stereo image unfolds and widens the audio horizon, our hearts follow her over the fields and over the falls.. a lovely song perfectly heradling Andrea's return.

Leaves of October brings back that incredibly blessed songwriting finesse that Andrea mastered some time ago most notably on Saturday Morning Sweet Shoppe. The melodies are beautifully arranged and again those spectacularly produced harmonies act like massage therapy to the temples. What a genuinely innovative girl Andrea Perry is!

Broken Heart just happens to be one of the best 'love lamenting' songs I have heard in a very long time. The lyrics are soooo clever and are really the stuff of the kind of English Literature classes that kept you spellbound when the only thing you ever read before was The Beano!

Don't You Still Want Me? is another classic Andrea track where she uses her vocal not just as a soul-injection instrument but also as the principle emphasiser to just about every word and meaning. Musicianship is excellent yet again and the arrangement and production are absolutely first class. It's in the way on the other hand, comes at us with a nice Elvis Costello/ELO kinda touch but with the rough bits of both artists being pulled away and replaced with the much tighter, much cleaner and much more mesmerising Perry attributes.

Take Me Where The Lions Roar is brilliant, original and the kind of song that could provide the soundtrack to many a young kids summer! How does she do this? The girl weves tapestries with her voice and then has the unmitigated audacity to flavour the whole thing with bits of 70s funk, 70s brass, 90s ingenuity and millenium excellence! And... talking of excellence, one of my favourite most highly recommended songs on this album is the incredible This Little Time a song that contains the type of production and musicianship that's frequently and historically graced the mixing desks at Abbey Road (had to mention it... can't help it!) and most of us have a very clear idea of the stuff that came out of there! One of the things about Andrea Perry is that her vocals and lyrics alone often demand a thousand replays to be fully appreciated... I guess that's what makes alot of what Andrea Perry does rather timeless.

Never Knew brings us all to the realization that indeed there is something very special and ridiculously orginal about this girl that goes beyond what we'd expect from someone outside of the 30 million dollar music biz income bracket. Never Knew highlights Andrea's athletic songwriting ability even further and without getting really technical about it... this song really is testimony to the fact that this album is an amazing piece of work and, thankfully, we still have a few tracks to go!

Reservoir is such an inspiring and yet almost semi-private song of appreciation that we can all share in and relate to. She's a very sincere and determined songwriter is our Andrea and where I'd be quite happy reading the book of verse alone, it's such a treat having these words set to such wonderfully accomplished music.

Soul Cries again highlights how Andrea's lead vocal treatments and crafted harmony meanderings have developed since her last album. The lyrics switch rapidly between subjective and objective views and we see how Andrea's approach to her songwriting can often be identical to a master painter's choice of colour.

Let's Not Go Out Tonight is a truly beautiful love song filled to the brim with some rather magical and masterful piano and bass work that's supported with equally masterful guitar. Of course the vocals are as angelic as heaven has commissioned them to be and I can't help but think that this song is further evidence of Andrea Perry's escalated status as one of the world's finest alt pop songwriters. Day Moon meanwhile, is every bit as amazing as the artist intended it to be. Watch out for those lovely trickles of guitar and effects that work so well together to blanket the intelligently focused lyrics and vocals. What a superbly produced piece of work this song really inescapably is!

I love Wasting Away, it's the kind of song that leaves you wishing Andrea Perry lived next door but one. You see.. you'd have to pester her using all kinds of excuses if she lived right next door and I can quite easily drum up all kinds of excuses believe me! Here's one: 'Hi Andrea.. I've just put the kettle on as Sir George Martin and his son Giles will be here in a minute... I've played them your last three albums and they were absolutely knocked out... now was that one lump or two?'

and so to the final track Rivers of Stars inspired by the Carl Sagan TV series Cosmos.. you knowwwww the show where the entire universe and all of it's wonder were brought into our living rooms from the helm of the ship Carl was commanding. You'll be missed for an eternity Carl. On the actual song front... Andrea sprinkles her enthusiasm and sense of personal wonder at the beauty of the universe through the beauty of her arrangement and timeless vocal treatments. It's a fine ending to an absolute masterpiece of an album that surely deserves recognition for being one of the best alternative and contemporary pop albums to have emerged in the past thirty years!

CD Reviews

IOM Magazine

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