Description
CD review by Terry Carlan
The first track, ‘Searching for the spark’ is a beautiful one that starts off with an acoustic guitar and the delightful voice of Merrilyn Simmons.
A cello comes in behind, adding depth, and then in come the drums, bass and piano.
The band sits in there beautifully.
A questioning song, maybe a song of loss.
Poignant.
She sings about searching for the spark. Delightful.
‘Life goes on’ hangs together really nicely and deals with feelings after a relationship has ended.
It has lovely harmonies, a cruising melody and lovely interplay between guitar and violin.
‘Little bit of everything’ ups the tempo and becomes nicely pop in singing about how attraction is a little bit of everything.
‘Earthbound’ starts with a delightful upbeat accordion riff and the band comes in with a feet tappin’ song about being happy where you are, connected to the earth, happy with what you’ve got.
Sets the feet moving. Lovely.
The band plays superbly.
Merrilyn sings with gentleness and authority about a range of things we all know in the connected human psyche.
‘Make it real’, ‘I can tell him’, ‘Climb a tree’, ‘Light the fire’ are all songs which are well crafted and so listenable.
The CD has 13 tracks and contains a booklet with the lyrics, all written by Merrilyn, which was just what I needed.
I sat and listened and read and imagined myself in her backyard in Brunswick.
‘Breathe in, breathe out … Autumn leaves, smelling Turkish bread, conversations in cafes’ (from Look at the stars)
All in all, it’s a delightful CD.
