Holly Brook - Like Blood Like Honey
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Free Music Notes for Like Blood Like Honey
Free Music Review: Delightful! Talent! Vocals and instrumentation fantastic!
Hit: 5 Stars
Wow! haven't enjoyed a disk this much for some time! Each sold DOES NOT sound like the others on this disk. Looking forward to new releases!Free Music Review: Great new artist
Hit: 5 Stars
I love Holly Brook's sound. This is a great cd and I'm anxious to see more of what Holly will create in the future.Free Music Review: Fantastic
Hit: 5 Stars
Music is wonderful and the voice incases perfectly in the melody. A brilliant COMPACT DISC.Free Music Review: Tori/Sarah Cocktail!
Hit: 4 Stars
A great, emotional, refreshing album. Holly is an accomplished instrumentalist (piano, dulcimer, guitar) and singer-songwriter. My only criticism of this album is that it sounds as if Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan and Joni Mitchell got thrown in a music-blender, but not quite blended enough, because one song will sound like Sarah McLachlan and the next one like Tori Amos and so on. It's noticeable that the most derivative songs are written by Holly herself and that the ones that come closest to having a unique sound are ones that she co-writes. Having said that, it is a great album, it just hasn't got enough of her own sound, despite showing real emotional and musical maturity.
Giving It Up For You - 4 Stars. This song is clearly radio-bound and it's a great song, despite obvious influences (Tori Amos). It's a strange choice to begin the album because the beginning of it sounds just like 'Live To Tell' by Madonna. This song doesn't display the same emotional maturity as the rest of the album and this is shown in over dramatic lyrics like "I take a lot of medicine I don't really need". But it's a great song and I'd give it 5 stars if it didn't have such a Tori Amos feel to it.
Wanted - 5 Stars. This one should be all over your radio anytime soon. Great song!
What I Wouldn't Give - 5 Stars. Far and away the best song on the album. The song begins with the most beautiful piano and voice and builds into a gorgeous refrain:
What I wouldn't give just to forget
So I can remember how to live again
This song has such great words. How can you not love the poetry of describing herself feeling "dissonant and distracted"?
Like Blood Like Honey - 4 Stars. A beautiful, simple song that highlights Hollys voice and guitar playing. One of my favorite songs on the album.
Curious - 4.5 Stars. This one was written solely by Holly and it is fantastic. Flawed, yes, but for that fantastic hook you can forgive anything. It starts out sounding very much like Sarah McLachlan's 'Do What You Have To Do' from the album Surfacing but once the hook kicks in... Wow. She is definitely earning her label of 'the new Sarah McLachlan' here. There are some points in the song where the melody seems to lose the plot. A flawed jewel, ending with the emotive line "there are too many unanswered questions that I hold on to... like You".
Saturdays - 4 Stars. This is one of the 'Tori Amos' sounding songs. It starts with a mischievous, jumping rhythm with Holly indulging her slightly drama queen tendencies ("time to kill, take a pill..."). Again, you have to forgive it because of the melodies that come later for "Stop pushing all your tragedies away". It has a beautiful melody in the middle that I wish was repeated in the song.
Again And Again - 4 Stars. If 'Curious' is the most Sarah McLachlan styled song on the album, this one is the most obvious Tori Amos sounding song, but a great song nonetheless.
Heavy - 2 Stars. This song is very much like Sarah McLachlan given a slightly jazzy makeover but with a shot of Tori Amos thrown in for good measure.
Still Love - 2 Stars. This song is very much like Sarah McLachlan given a slightly jazzy makeover - but hold the shot of Tori Amos this time.
All Will Be Forgotten - 3 Stars. This song is moody, reflective and melodic and also has some of the best 'no expense spared' production that makes this album stand out. Holly doesn't yet seem to realize her musical maturity and this is shown through lyrics like "little things like these are good to keep my silly mind from wandering".
Cellar Door - 3 Stars. This song draws heavily on the chords and melodies of Joni Mitchell, starting with smoky, threatening jazz-influenced piano and vocals and building up to a more mainstream rock ending.
Free Music Review: Though I'm Young and Cynical it's Not My Only Crime
Hit: 4 Stars
Holly Brook may strike up images of a local creek, but the twenty year old is currently invading your radio singing the haunting chorus to Fort Minor's Where'd You Go. But don't expect any hip hop beats or guest spots from Mike Shinoda or other rappers on her debut, Like Blood Like Honey. Instead the album is strictly part of a Lilith Fair revival where Holly pours out her soul while switching effortlessly from the piano to the guitar.
But as heard on Where'd You Go, Brook is more deep than her contemporizes sets the tone with the opening lines to the opening track, Giving it Up for You where she tells us, "Though I'm young and cynical, it's not my only crime." The song itself sounds like an edgier version of songs heard on Anna Nalick's debut. And when I say edgy, I'm not talking about the manufactured edginess of singers like Ashlee Simpson. Then there's What I Wouldn't Give which shows a much more vulnerable side. As for influences, they run the gambit of female singer songwriters; Wanted is reminiscent of something from Sarah McLachlan's prime. Saturdays acoustic quickly beat sound like something Susanne Vega could have came up with. Heavy brings up thoughts of Tori Amos but much more palatable.
Even though Holly doesn't get as experimental as another artist she is compared too, Fiona Apple, Brook branch out more musically than other singer songwriters of the day. This is helped by Brook's knowledge of multiple instruments so she can switch from one to another without bogging the album with tedium and knows when to bring in other instruments into the equation to highlight the song. She can also bring things down, ending the album her and the guitar on All Will be Forgotten then spotlights her piano on the closer Cellar Door. Maybe after a couple more years and albums under her belt Holly Brook can get to the place where Fiona recently reached herself.