Anne Heaton: Blazing Red

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Confessional vocalist sheds convention and too many metaphorsWritten across the red-and-white cover of Anne Heaton’s latest album, Blazing Red, are the words “My Only Way Out is In.”On her 2009 release, the New York songstress delves deep into her emotional life, making for a quieter, more acutely introspective work than ever before.

It’s the age-old confessional struggle; as poetry moves inward, it often sheds metaphors relating to the exterior world, thus losing some of its effectiveness. But it’s good to see Heaton moving away from simple love songs, and as she becomes more adept at translating her large and scary emotions, her songwriting will only get better.

In “Momma to You,” Heaton tells her unborn child she’ll try “to make myself a better woman” so she can be (chorus) “A good momma to you, a good momma to you.” And in “Why I Resist,” she tells a dead family member, “My need to conform is closer to my heart of hearts than is my need to fit it…”

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Although drums, basses and electric guitars are credited on the liner notes of Blazing Red, their presence is minimal. Instead, a violin strain floats above Heaton’s languid key-stroking on many of the tracks. The stripped-down acoustics are mirrored by Heaton’s raw, emotive lyrics. Classic songs of love and loss like “Crystallize” and “Out to Sea” are still adorned in lacily detailed imagery such as snowflakes, tides and re-written fairy-tales. But Heaton is exploring deeper emotive material here as well: insecurity, coping with the loss of a parent and preparing for the birth of a child. But she doesn’t seem quite ready to deal with the closeness of her thematic material lyrically, so some of her imagery dissolves into clunky, conceptual phrases.

Heaton’s always written stunning love ballads of the “Jewel” brand: sweet declarations drizzled over simple, lush piano chords. On Give In, her lyrics fit decidedly into this genre, while most of her numbers are layered with electric drums and all the trimmings of pop.