{"id":40944,"date":"2008-06-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/unlikely-emergency\/"},"modified":"2008-06-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-09T00:00:00","slug":"unlikely-emergency","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/unlikely-emergency\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlikely Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years back, I went to see Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman in concert.\u00a0 They played some of their old hits from the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive days.\u00a0 It was great; lots of nostalgic fun and games.\u00a0 However, if you met me on the street the next day and asked me to tell you about the concert, you would get very little information about the boys and would instead be subjected to a stream of wide-eyed, slack-jawed, fan-boy style verbiage regarding the opening act:\u00a0 Serena Ryder.\u00a0 I should have reviewed one of her albums right then and there, but time is something that I don\u2019t have in abundance and life intrudes on things we want to do.\u00a0 But today, I have found the time.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Unlikely Emergency<\/i> is a perfect introductory experience for the new Serena fan.\u00a0 As Ms. Ryders first full-length disc, it has enough rough edges to trick you into believing she is new to the music biz.\u00a0 That feeling won\u2019t last long; by the middle of the album, you will be convinced that some magical process has allowed a practiced and mature veteran chanteuse to somehow wriggle her way inside this youngster\u2019s corporeal being.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

At the time of this album\u2019s release, Ryder was only twenty-years-old.\u00a0 Now let me be clear. \u2013 I am fifty years old this year. I grew up listening to incredible and diverse vocalists in the rock and folk genres, and I am the absolute definition of the matured, jaded music fan. I have seen and heard some great material, but in terms of pure vocal talent, I have never heard anything better than this. Ryder is a bottle of fine vintage red wine, and like a fine wine, she exudes flavours and aromas of things you would never expect to find by just looking at the outside of the bottle.\u00a0 Look at the CD cover: there she is, nose ring and all staring out at you looking for all the world like any other young woman of the times. Now open the bottle and breathe. The obvious vocal comparison to Etheridge flows up and around you, but there are Joplin and Chapman in there also, and way down there is a hint of Buffy Ste. Marie. Ryder herself names Neil Young and Culture Club as musical influences.\u00a0 Can\u2019t get much more diverse than that, I suppose.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

There are ten tracks on Unlikely Emergency<\/i>.\u00a0 From the celebratory \u201cSing Sing\u201d to the shiver-inducing \u201cSkin Crawl\u201d (my personal fave), to the astonishing rendition of \u201cAt Last\u201d (yes, the one from 1941), it is almost too good to be true.\u00a0 Living up here in the Great White North, floating directly on the froth that blasts forth from the constant U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> media volcano, it is easy to miss locally grown Canadian talent.\u00a0 Don\u2019t miss this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":29373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8211],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40944","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-serena-ryder","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40944","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\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40944"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}