Tres Femmes
Tres Femmes
»
Tres Femmes
Tres Femmes
Screaming Galaxy Records, 2004
RiYL: Indigo Girls, Kelly Willis |
You see, we reviewers get loads of free junk in the mail, oftentimes unsolicited and from bands that make you question humanity -- as in, how on earth can anything be this bad? And sometimes even the CDs we ask to receive can be so flatly disappointing that you wonder if you've lost your mind.
Of course, I don't mean to imply that my expectations were low when I popped in Tres Femmes' debut CD in my stereo, but I'm just trying to paint the picture of what we reviewers are bombarded with on a weekly basis. Basically, we get lots of crappy music in the mail.
But we also get the gems, the occasional diamond in the rough that gives us reviewers faith that for every Left Front Tire and Electricute CD floating out there in review land, there's an occasional album by honest singer/songwriters like the women in Tres Femmes that reminds us why we got into this gig in the first place ... because we love music.
While it won't set the world afire, Tres Femmes is an album that pulls no punches: a handful of catchy songs written and sung by three relatively unknown women who are just having a good time. The results aren't always spectacular, but that's cool. This is basically an album that will cheer you up and put a smile on your face, and sometimes that's all you need.
The band consists of Midwestern singer/songwriters Kellie Lin Knott, Victoria and Stolie, who is perhaps the most well-known of the three because of her stint as a public-relations official at Chicago-based Bloodshot Records. Each singer has released solo albums and toured the Midwest extensively.
They all possess eerily similar sopranos, so distinguishing between the three can be difficult. Harmonies are the dominant theme, and the women are clearly in fine form throughout. It will be hard for them to avoid the Indigo Girls comparison, but is that necessarily a bad thing?
If there's a flaw, it is perhaps that the singers' similarities make a few songs not quite forgettable, but routine. Songs like Knott's "Automatic" and Victoria's "Go" get lost in the shuffle -- not because they are necessarily bad, but because they are, well, undistinguished.
But their version of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'," the harmonies on Victoria's "Friends For Life" and Stolie's faux-gospel "Maybe I Might" inject some life and spice to the record. The trio sounds best when reinterpreting Petty's simple masterpiece and brings out a freshness in this song missing from the original version.
"Free Fallin'" is a high point, but perhaps the best moment is on Knott's "Bring On The Rain," a powerful ballad about a young woman asking for trouble so she can become a stronger person. "Bring on the rain / and when the flood comes / rushing from the river / teach me how weather / the shakin' and the shivers / Bring on the rain / and if I swallow more than I can handle / help me breathe / and stand up / and not get so sentimental."
Basically Tres Femmes is band consisting of three friends, and that's probably the best way to describe their debut. It's a friendly album. It'll be there for you when you need a pick-me-up and have you humming along in no time.
RODEO ROB | An expert on all things "alt," Rob spends his days covering the energy industry and his nights covering the DC-area bars. Raise yer glass especially high to this man, for he has contributed to this site constantly since its creation four years ago.