Catie Curtis hasn’t enjoyed the commercial success of Shawn Colvin, but her songs define the term folk-pop just as precisely. On her fifth album, the Boston-based writer/singer dresses her relationship tales in folk-based melodies that elevate into layer-cake hooks filigreed by pastoral guitar/organ/mandolin arrangements that sound like organic outgrowths of her acoustic strumming. What Curtis’ voice lacks in distinctiveness it makes up for in conviction; she’s in love with the sound and sense of words, and words are at the heart of the aptly titled Dreaming in Romance Languages.
Though she’s not above the occasional Hallmark sentiment (“It’s the Way You Are”), Curtis is terrific when observing couples under duress. “The Trouble You Bring,” for example, finds her narrator bitterly confronting a straying mate: “Love’s too dangerous or it’s too safe / You bring confusion a human face / When all you want is what cannot be / What you want is all you see.” While Curtis’ writing is impressive, I must confess to a certain dearth of enthusiasm about the experience of listening to her record, which is tasteful and soothing but essentially passive—it begs for musical refrains as impassioned as the characters Curtis brings to life in her lyrics.