If I were writing advertising copy then I would create a tag line something like “the spaces between the notes are where the soul lives” to use when marketing Anna Renee’s album “The Places You’ll Go”. As a bonus, such a statement might actually turn out to be true.
There has been money and talent expended on these songs with a fully featured production swathing all the sentiments in a glorious amount of gift wrapping. “Guilty”, easily the best song here, has an easy going and high polished urban feel as if the street was where it is at but Ms. Renee’s vocal counterpoints all this in the manner of a torch singer with nothing other than heartbreak on her mind. “Pendulum” is even bigger, high fibre if you like, with the piano soon consumed by the bombastic backing that nearly rolls right over Ms. Renee’s voice. However, deeper forces are at work and it turns out that it would take a lot more than that to drown her in the sea of emotion.
Anna Renee can stand on her own though and on the rather more restrained songs, such as “Ready for Flight” and “Shark”, her voice moves to the front where it belongs. The lyrics in both of these songs are somewhat darker too and that seems to best suit her style.
There is promise here even if the arrangements sometimes seem determined to subsume Anna Renee’s talent in corporate style homogeneity when all she actually needs is space.