Thea Hopkins
Album: Lilac Sky
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 6
Website: http://www.theahopkins.com

Boston's Thea Hopkins released this, her third collection of self-penned songs, way back last February, but it's only just reached the top of my pile. I'd say its brevity (six songs and 21 minutes) probably doesn't do it (or Thea) justice, but otherwise it's not all that easy a record to appraise. First, Thea's voice takes a bit of getting used to, at least initially - it strides across the melodic lines slightly uncomfortably, which at least configures with the restless, electric-guitar-heavy backing she seems to favour for her material at the moment.

Apparently, her first two albums were much more restrained and in the contemporary-folk vein, and it's a shame I never got to hearing them, for Lilac Sky is very much a rip-it-all-up-and-start-again kind of record. Well, at least from the first couple of tracks, where that electricity blazes and scars (that's Peter Parcek on guitar there). Thereafter, things take a turn for the quieter, at least as far as backing is concerned, with the first of the disc's two covers, Do Your Best For Rock And Roll (penned by Linda & Teddy Thompson, y' know), which is a mournful piano-backed honky-tonk slowie, whereby Thea's slurring voice seems well in tune with the bar-room ambience and sentiments. Down By The Water is a twangy uptempo memory (Andy Hollinger now taking on the guitar mantle), and Thea's voice sure gets to the heart of this song.

Moving into the final strait, a rocky cover of Marianne Faithfull's When I Find My Life feels less focused somehow due to the comparatively frenetic tempo adopted, yet it seems to make some kind of sense by the time it's halfway thru, while album closer Whatcha Gonna Do? stretches out in style across a rather beautifully conjured, mandola-rippled desert. It's a curious mixture of a record, tough and sturdy and characterful but oddly directionless in view of Thea's songwriting vision - and yet I ended up really rather liking it and wishing I could hear more of Thea.

David Kidman