Susan Cattaneo
Album: Haunted Heart
Label: Jersey Girl
Tracks: 15
Website: http://www.susancattaneo.com

When I read in the accompanying biog that as well as being a singer-songwriter, Susan Cattaneo is also a professor in songwriting at the prestigious Berklee College Of Music of music, I began to fear the worst, did we have a mistress of theory here? That fear was compounded by the title of the opening track, "Haunted Heart Prelude" with a length of just 45 seconds, pretentious or what ? And as these things come in threes, the biog quote of "I'm a songwriting geek, I appreciate the work that goes into crafting a great song. Great songwriters have an authentic point of view, but they are also artisans, masters of the craft. I'm proud that my songs have something to , and that they are carefully crafted." It certainly made me wary as a lot of stuff that's carefully crafted comes from the head, not the heart.

As it is my fears about Jersey born, well New Jersey born, I'm not sure the Channel Islands could contain her, Susan Cattaneo were predominantly groundless, she does write from the heart and a dark heart it is too, though occasionally she lets her quest for the right word get in the way, sometimes it's the imperfection that hammers home the point, would Venus look better if she had arms?

Cattaneo has proved to be quite a prolific songwriter since she returned to recording after concentrating on motherhood with "Haunted Heart" being her fourth album in almost as many years and having heard this I may well find myself exploring that back catalogue.

Apparently her previous albums have been a little more country than this cut, which takes on a more Americana, pop folk feel, but if the narrative is as strong then those previous albums have got to be worth a punt. One of the reasons for that is the number of songs that come at you from a first person perspective, either Cattaneo has lived one heck of a life and is good at articulating it or she's got a natural ability to imagine her way into places and events and I'd guess the truth lies somewhere in the middle ground.

I'm a sucker for story songs so this album presses my buttons in a major way, this is an album packed with places and events, it just needs Cattaneo, to loosen up in a couple of places, to go with the flow, rather than define the course of the river. That aside, "Haunted Heart" is an album well worth reaching out to as it'll answer a question or two you haven't asked.

Neil King