Without a doubt, Emily Shirley is an acquired taste. Her quirky lyrics and music are something I began to enjoy only after repeatedly listening to this in a single sitting one day at work. It was then that I finally absorbed the amazing array of intricacies in these five songs. I wasn\u2019t too crazy about any of this material when I first listened. Shirley has won me over, though, because of her individualism. It is different enough to keep my interest. And, given the same type of investment (perhaps you won\u2019t need as long as I did, depending upon your tendencies in the vast musical universe), you will discover an amazing songwriter and singer.<\/p>\n
Kicking off with \u201cFlowers,\u201d Shirley introduces a snare drum, wind chimes, a woodwind (clarinet?), acoustic guitar, perhaps a violin, and keyboards \u2013 and there may be many more instruments I\u2019m not listening. It\u2019s a whimsical song talking about \u201cDamn flowers never grow \/ Reaching for the light \/ Struggle and in the end \/ Choked out.\u201d Also, there are these interesting lyrics: \u201cSay a prayer\/ You never cared about moderation \/ It\u2019s all about temptation \/ The choir sings an extra hymn \/ You hope it will get you in \/ Salvation,\u201d which give you an idea about the words being sung but not about the phrasing that Shirley employs to deliver these thoughts.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking The Sun\u201d is more straight-forward than the \u201cFlowers\u201d with an actual snare backbeat on the 2 and 4 beat, a bass line, and an acoustic guitar. Vocally, this is the highlight track for Shirley. She captures the soul and charisma of Letters To Cleo\u2019s Kay Hanley, literally unloading her soul on the listener\u2019s ear. She sings, \u201cI\u2019m taking the sun \/ And you can\u2019t have it back \/ I\u2019m taking the moon \/ And I will paint it black.\u201d She follows that track with \u201cEarnest,\u201d which is more subdued with \u2018train of thought\u2019 lyrics, most notably, \u201cIf earnest is a curse \/ Then I\u2019m pretty much screwed \/ Because I take myself serious \/ That my face is turning blue.\u201d The music is secondary on this track without a solid melody being played by the instruments. It\u2019s the song I routinely began to gloss through the more I listened to it. The silly \u201cBlueberry Song\u201d follows at only 1:48 in length. This song is closer to \u201cFlowers\u201d than any of the other songs. A trombone tooting and a violin plucking make up the dominant musical landscape. Shirley\u2019s vocals are put through some sort of an effects machine, which makes it harder for me to get into this track. It\u2019s better than \u201cEarnest\u201d but not better than \u201cTaking The Sun.\u201d Concluding this release is \u201cQuiet Hours,\u201d which brings back the soul and emotion that made \u201cTaking The Sun\u201d so powerful. <\/p>\n Emily Shirley is on to something with these songs. There are enough variations in style, from \u201cFlowers\u201d to \u201cEarnest,\u201d to make this an interesting release.\u00a0 Constructively, I would have ditched \u201cEarnest\u201d and released this as a stronger four song EP. The strongest thing Shirley has going for her is that she is not writing songs that sound familiar the first time you hear them. This works to her advantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8622],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42104","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-emily-shirley","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42104","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42104"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}