As the year winds down here at the Pierce Memorial Archives, I’m
\nleft sitting in front of a pile of relatively new releases that I
\njust haven’t gotten to review yet. I guess if I had the luxury of
\nquitting my real job, I’d have more time to devote to getting
\nthrough the ever-growing pile – as well as getting to all those
\ndamned interviews I have yet to transcribe.<\/p>\n
One of these discs which has been patiently waiting for me to
\ngive it a spin is
\nBroken Things<\/i>, the latest release from country\/folk
\nchanteuse Julie Miller. If you want to try and pigeon-hole her into
\none clear-cut category – well, go right ahead. I’ll wait.<\/p>\n
Go ahead and try to explain to yourself how Miller can make the
\njump from the poppiness of “Ride The Wind To Me” to the soft
\ncrooning ballad of “I Know Why The River Runs” – changes one right
\nafter the other, hopping over the lines of genre like a Mexican
\njumping bean.<\/p>\n
Not so easy to classify her, is it? Brother, don’t I know it.
\nEven after giving
\nBroken Things<\/i> a few listens, I still don’t know if
\ncountry\/folk is the right label to stick on her. All I do know is
\nthat, with rare exception, Miller shines on this disc and keeps you
\ninterested in every note she has to sing.<\/p>\n
Granted, there are a few moments of weakness, where it sounds
\nlike Miller is trying to cover too much musical ground in one
\nalbum. “I Need You” just is not the kind of vehicle that is
\nperfectly suited for Miller’s vocal style, and it shows. But hold
\non – she shows that she’s perfectly able to tackle a more rock-like
\nvein on “Strange Lover,” a track that has more twists than a
\nrollercoaster in the summer. So maybe this was just an isolated
\nflaw on “I Need You”.<\/p>\n
There is enough of a twang in Miller’s style to justify calling
\nsome of her stylings country, though this is hardly die-cut country
\nmusic. If anything, Miller uses the power of the ballads to
\nshowcase her vocals the best. Tracks like “I Know Why The River
\nRuns,” “I Still Cry” and “Maggie” all will make you sit up and take
\nnotice of Miller, as well as make you wonder how much longer it
\nwill be before her star really begins to rise in the world of
\nadult-contemporary. (Hey, if Shania Twain, Trisha Yearwood and
\nFaith Hill can all cross over, why can’t Miller, who keeps roots in
\nall the different musical tributaries?)<\/p>\n
What I like most about
\nBroken Things<\/i> is that it’s an album that never seems to get
\nold or stale-sounding. There are enough musical shifts that even
\nafter multiple listenings, you’ll find yourself caught off-guard by
\nthe direction that Miller takes. Admittedly, such shifts have sunk
\nmore popular artists who tried to bite off more than they could
\nchew. But that’s where Miller has the advantage; she knows just
\nwhen to make the switch, and how extreme to take it without sending
\nthe listener into shock.<\/p>\n
\nBroken Things<\/i> is the kind of album you might not give first
\nthought to purchasing while walking down the aisles of Borders –
\nbut once you sit down and give it a fighting chance, you’ll wonder
\nhow you lived without such a disc for so long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6217],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36415","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-julie-miller","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36415"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}