Search - West of Eden :: West of Eden

Rather gorgeous

Ethan Straffin | Palo Alto, CA USA | 02/23/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"West of Eden are a six-piece Swedish band who decided to play Celtic pop. It turns out to have been a wise decision. Jenny Schaub has a nearly flawless voice that swoops and glides and generally does uncannily beautiful things without ever coming across as ostentatious, and the material doesn't let her down. Case in point: "This Piece of Earth," which starts off as a quiet anthem for those who define success and exploration a bit differently, then turns out at the end to be a love song as well. Meanwhile, "I Don't Care" is an almost inexcusibly catchy, upbeat little number in which three verses are devoted to our heroine telling us how much she doesn't care that her father, mother, and friends don't approve of her choice of boyfriend -- and then, in the final verse, how much she doesn't care that he isn't actually her boyfriend at all and doesn't even particularly like her. (Oh, c'mon, you can't tell me that's not comedy.)



If there's a weakness here, it lies primarily in the few songs sung by Martin Schaub. I feel somewhat bad saying that, in that Martin is clearly a driving force in this band, and it's not as though his voice is unpleasant. Still, there's something disturbingly Christopher-Cross-meets-Dan-Fogelberg about songs like "Ripperton Road" that I just can't get past.



Having said that, I still find that this album's strengths more than make up for its flaws.



West of Eden have released two other albums since this debut: _Rollercoaster_ and _A Stupid Thing to Do_. Most recently, Jenny and Martin Schaub have released a fourth album, _Kite High_. While Amazon sadly doesn't carry any of these at the moment, U.S. listeners can find the imports at reasonable prices from the (very friendly and responsive) www.tayberry.com."