Search - Shona Laing :: Shona

Strong songwriting, melancholy vocalist

J. Bilby | Kingston, New Hampshire United States | 04/20/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Follow up to her excellent "New On Earth" cd back in the early to mid 90's, this collection(self titled SHONA LAING, much like New On Earth features
Shona Laings beautiful melodies and streaming song selections(Andrew said, Decent thing,Heat and the Smoke, Man with the wild name, Hard World, Hard and Fast)
One song after the other her haunted, melancholy vocals draw
the listener in to her world. Thats what attracted me to her
music, its so personal but yet it informs us with her politcal
views about the world and love and loss. Less punch than her previous two collections yet still very much a winner. Shona is quite a songwriter, I'm sure if she wanted to she could have added much more to these songs but
it would have only got in the way of her messages, which to me
is her strongest card.(Although she can real be great when she
lets go, "White Water", "Soviet Snow", "Drive baby Drive","The Bishop") She can tell a story in each song that
most of these current "pop" flash in the pans could only dream.
I hope she gets back in the studio and gives us listeners a
mix of pop/rock/folk/blues-jazz flash and her personal visions. I saw her live in Boston years back I know what shes can do. I felt her
"South" CD tried to balance both and got her songwriting/musicanship out
to a much larger audience. She certainly has the talents to
reach a world audience and god knows theres enough in this crazy
world to write about, Shona, like Bono, Sting,& Annie Lennox's music(a few examples) just knows how to reach people through their songs."