ANGELA HARRIS
Roots
Maximum Music/Routes Records
· Surprisingly beautiful, despite occasionally sinking into a Nashville Top 40 vibe.
Angela Harris is a small-town British Columbia girl, and Roots is her second CD. It’s straightforward country, but despite occasionally straying into the shamelessly manipulative and sugary lyric territory occupied by most of country music’s Top 40, Harris has got something special.
Her voice is smooth and thick as molasses, reminiscent of the power of Patsy Cline and kd lang, but without kd’s recent smarminess. And unlike most Top 40 country music, Harris uses music as a venue for broader ideas than jingoistic politics, unrequited love and the sanctity of being a good ol’ boy. "Power in Opinion," for instance, may be the first country song in recent memory to laud tolerance towards "different names for the holy one, different traditions… Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh/Buddhist, First Nations, strong in their beliefs." Roots is a beautiful-sounding album, with simple arrangements and production. I’d sure like to see Harris develop away from her mainstream Nashville tendencies, but even with them, this album is sweetly listenable.
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