Suzanne Vega
Album: Close Up Vol.4 Songs Of Family
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.suzannevega.com

As the title suggests, "Close Up Vol.4 Songs Of Family" is the fourth in the series, released on Cooking Vinyl, in which Suzanne Vega re-explores and reimagines songs and pulls them together in themes rather than by era. It's proved to be an interesting concept and this a worthy addition to the series, though as with its predecessors I'd still like Ms Vega to have included fresh songs into the mix.

Suzanne Vega is blessed with a voice that's truly distinctive, it is one that has allowed her to develop her own style, one which has served her well over the years and, based on this continues to do so. Granted not with the same commerciality of her early albums, but definitely in the way it allows her to continue to define songs.

At heart Vega is a poet, stripping her songs back to the bare bones, as she does here, only emphasises that. There is a resonance in the way that she uses words, one that is as strong or stronger than what she actually says with them.

Like pretty much everyone, Suzanne Vega's relationship with family has changed as she's grown older, daughter, lover, wife, mother and that has a similar impact on her songs, perspectives change with the benefit of hindsight. The thing I like about "Songs Of Family" is that the changes are subtle, more about emphasis, than about outright differences.

The other thing about Vega is that a lot of her albums tended to reflect her state of being at the time, you could tell when she was fragile, when she was more confident in herself and in her relationships, pulling the songs together by type delivers an album that really does explore all aspects of the human condition without it sounding like a one way conversation.

"Close Up Vol.4 Songs Of Family" is not going to bring back Suzanne Vega's glory days, but it, and the series, do say a lot about her songwriting, poetry and how they can and should be interpreted. It's a great album for her fans and fans of the songwriting art.

Neil King