Rosie Thomas

If Songs Could Be Held

(Sub Pop)

Record Review by Michael Byrne

The musical control displayed on Thomas's third release is astounding.  Over forty minutes of folksy sweetness, there's hardly a rough edge, misplaced note, or clumsy lyric.  Gone is any sort of vulnerability from her first two albums.  These tracks, nearly without exception, are airtight: there's a high wall between the dirt of our world and the one inside this disc.  And that's also a wall that separates folk music from pop music.  Unfortunately, scaling it is almost always wasted effort.

I first came upon Rosie Thomas three years ago on a Sub Pop compilation, buried among a characteristic mix of all things hard and/or rough.  That track, "Finish Line," is a simple song about hope and exhaustion.  It's measured, quiet, and imperfect: it radiates in every element that day-to-day fatigue and world weariness: before the words appear, the listener understands what the song's about.  It fit on the compilation—among the Seattle dirt, Rosie Thomas was kin.

Not so with If Songs Could Be Held.  Thomas's new family may well be that growing clan of overproduced songstresses–Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos (sigh), the Natalies–all of whom she takes a turn channeling on this disc.  This is so much a greater loss in that we can hear echoes of her previous recordings, nowhere more so than in her words.  Stripped to just lyrics–nearly all about love and longing–this is the same Rosie Thomas.  They're nothing momentous or profound, just simple words about people and their little orbiting worlds.  On "Death Came and Got Me" she sings, "All I have craved is to be seen/who cares anyway?/cuz when it's over all that matters is the love you gave away."  But the luster of the song–the overproduction, the unnecessary vocal flourishes, the flaunted virtuosity –betray those lyrics.  Perhaps this is what Thomas wanted: being seen.  And then what?  Concession to pop?  This is what I hear on If Songs Could Be Held.  We should expect more.