{"id":38574,"date":"2005-10-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-road-to-santiago\/"},"modified":"2005-10-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-10-05T00:00:00","slug":"the-road-to-santiago","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-road-to-santiago\/","title":{"rendered":"The Road To Santiago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Longtime readers of the Daily Vault know
\nI love Heather Dale<\/a>, plain and
\nsimple. Her
\nMay Queen<\/i> was a past album of the year of mine. So it was
\nwith much anticipation that I waited for
\nThe Road To Santiago<\/i>, her first ‘mainstream’ recording. (I
\nuse that term loosely. In reality,
\nSantiago<\/i> is merely her first CD that hasn’t relied
\nexclusively on Arthurian themes.)<\/p>\n

I’m happy to say I am not in any way disappointed.
\nThe Road To Santiago<\/i> is a magnificent CD, a wonder to listen
\nto, and one of the best CDs I’ve heard this year.<\/p>\n

It’s very hard to find fault with Dale’s voice, for starters.
\nShe has an elegant, magnificent voice, rich and heady like a good
\nport wine. She can alternately soar and dive, turn and wheel; her
\nvoice is like a raptor in flight, and it’s a magnificent thing to
\nlisten to.<\/p>\n

The production on
\nSantiago<\/i> is excellent as well, the musicianship is just
\nfine, and there’s very little — if anything — to complain about.
\nAs for the songs — well, I love all but one. The CD opens with the
\nelegant and spare “Hero,” Dale’s vocals sending shivers up and down
\nmy spine. “The Greyhound” and “Flowers Of Bermuda” are wonderful,
\nthough tragic sea shanteys, and Dale’s voice goes perfectly with
\nthe stories of heroism and loss. “Hunter” is a breathtakingly
\nbeautiful song about love, loss, and return. “Black Fox” is a
\nmorality caution to be careful what you ask for; you might get it,
\nand it might smell like brimstone. “Adrift” has wonderful piano in
\ncounterpoint to Dale’s vocals. If there’s a track that falls short,
\nit’s “Up In The Pear Tree” I admit to having no real fondness for
\nthe style of song (sort of a ‘folly of married men’ madrigal bouncy
\nthing), and I think that may affect my judgement.<\/p>\n

Where
\nThe Road To Santiago<\/i> really pays off is on “Medusa” and
\n“Sedna.” “Medusa” takes the Greek myth and turns it into a
\npowerful, vicious statement on standards of beauty; when Dale
\nsnarls “Damn them all!” it’s like being thrown into ice water.
\n“Sedna” is a hymn to the Inuit creator goddess, and it’s a thing of
\npure beauty. As individual tracks they’re magnificent; taken in
\ncounterpoint, Dale proves herself a master of comparing the dark to
\nthe light in all things.<\/p>\n

\nThe Road To Santiago<\/i> continues the career of te person I
\nconsider to be the best female vocalist currently recording. You
\nowe it to yourself to pick this up. Help spread the word.<\/p>\n

[For more information or to order the CD, check out
\nwww.heatherdale.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":27224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6774],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38574","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-heather-dale","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38574","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38574"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}