Bryden has an enchanting yet gutsy voice and she sure knows how to deliver it for maximum effect - she can tug at heart strings or shake the walls with power - and it all seems so natural and so damn easy for her!!
Play 90 second soundbite of 'Second Time Around' @ 'CD quality'
Bryden has an enchanting yet gutsy voice and she sure knows how to deliver it for maximum effect - she can tug at heart strings or shake the walls with power - and it all seems so natural and so damn easy for her!!
Bryden delivers three great songs here, 'Second Time Around', 'Late Night Call' and 'Goodbye', each has its own genre nuances, each defies categorisation but each shows the listener a part of Bryden's impressive range and ability. Considering that they're all quite different, the three tracks here knit together extremely well and offer Bryden a damn fine work-out . Bryden has a powerful way about her but she can just as easily turn up the mood and get all sentimental - seemingly, she's able to turn her hand to just about anything from searing blues to flirty pop but generally she prefers to settle somewhere inbetweeny and play the versatile card.
So, opening with the skittish and raunchy 'Second Time Around', Bryden sounds sassy and vibrant. She has a certain swagger in her voice that catches the ear and draws you in. 'Late Night Call' takes things down a few notches; almost New Orleans jazz here as Bryden keeps the backing simple with bar-room piano and brushed snare providing the carefully proportioned drive behind the voice. 'Goodbye' brings things smoothly to an end in beautifully gentle style; a real moody one this with softly complimentary bass, gentle percussion and acoustic guitar! That's it, just three bloody great tracks, three little tastes of Bryden heaven and it's gone!
What Nell Bryden does she does extremely well; a bit of a musical all-rounder, hard to pigeonhole but massively enjoyable and quite obviously a very special musical force. Bryden reminds me a little of Joni Mitchell - not in style or sound but insofar as she refuses to conform to any single genre and plays the cross-over game and blurs genre. She has a certain vocal timbre that, at times, calls to mind Judie Tzuke. But, Nell Bryden is just Nell Bryden, pure and simple - an elegant, often sexy sounding songstress and a rising star - now watch her go!!
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