KAY HANLEY
Zoe/Rounder Records
Cherry Marmalade
12-song CD
Kay Hanley's pure, clean pop sensibility is in fine form on Cherry Marmalade (Zoe/Rounder), her solo debut. Over two years in the making, Cherry Marmalade will be worth the wait for Kay Hanley fans. It boasts twelve lush songs that range from sunny and uplifting to quiet and confessional, and all of which shimmer with Hanley's trademark charm and zeal.
Though fans of early nineties breakout band Letters to Cleo will warm to the pop melodies busting out of Cherry Marmalade, Kay Hanley is not aiming for Letters to Cleo II. There's a slick maturity here, well earned by Hanley and husband Michael Eisenstein, who co-wrote six of the twelve tracks and plays guitar on almost all of them. An army of respected Boston musicians round out the band, including Ed Valauskas on bass, Paul Buckley on drums, and Peter Adams on keyboards.
The swirly and catchy "This Dreadful Life" shows Hanley and Eisenstein to be the latest chroniclers of life-in-a-band; "Sheltering Sky" and "Mean Streak" are charged with a fun freewheeling crunch. "Happy to Be Here" bounces in a fun, fanciful way, and is one of the songs with a breezy back porch countrified vibe courtesy of pedal steel guitar player Tim Obetz (Pineapple Ranch Hands). Pick up Cherry Marmalade; no Boston pop record collection will be complete without it.
July 12, 2001
Uploaded to Youtube by TheARR
on Jan 16, 2009
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