cd review

SHEA SEGER
By Clarissa Concio of Pulp Magazine

The May Street Project
(RCA/BMG)

There are only a few CDs I can stand listening to those precious minutes I force my body out of that blissful state in-between sleep and wakefulness, and for seven consecutive sunrises now, Shea (pronounced Shay) Seger’s hoarse, mid-range voice has been easing my mind from dreamland into reality.

Her debut album, The May Street Project, as like all virginal releases, has Seger trying to find her own comfortable niche, music-wise.

From the opening track ‘Last Time,’ to the rueful ‘May Street’, Seger has us smoothly sauntering through Nashville rock, blues, daisy-age hip-hop and even a little bit of country‹with a spattering of electronica and digital sampling as the musical superglue holding everything together. It might actually be easy to dismiss the 20-year-old Seger as just another statistic on the long list of solo female artists hoping to get past the Alanis Morisette/Fiona Apple label, but even if her voice does have a tinge of Fiona Apple, Seger¹s music has ³personality² burned into its very core.

Born in Fort Worth, Texas to musical parents from whom she picked up her long list of diverse musical influences from Janis Joplin to Pink

Floyd, Seger mixes the old Southern blues sound with her more recent discovery the groove of London¹s dance scene. Think Dusty Springfield with a synth.

Although I have my own personal favorites, which include the catchy

‘Last Time,’ her soulful duet with Canadian singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith on the country ballad ‘Always’ and the bearably cheesy ‘Isn’t It Good,’ it is quite difficult to pick one single cut that stands out in the album. It’s not because Seger’s songwriting (she cowrote most of the songs with Nick Whitecross and producer Martin Terefe) leaves much to be desired, it’s just that each song sort of slowly merges in with the next well, at least, not to the point that each cut is indiscernible making the album feel like one long, comfortable rainy-day drive along a traffic-free highway. If you like Worcestershire Sauce on your fried chicken and if you don¹t mind mixing a little drum looping and electronica with good old Southern blues, then you¹ll probably enjoy The May Street Project just as much as I did.