e_burrell's Full Review: Cooler Heart * by Deborah Vial
Travel and experience usually help when one goes into the studio to create an album. Lucky for Deborah Vial she's no new kid on the block - she's toured extensively overseas and opened for everyone from Ryan Adams to Chicago to Lisa Loeb. Her biggest exposure was at Lilith Fair as an opening act. With this exposure and honed chops it would seem a given that talent and experience would show through on "Cooler Heart".
Comparisons are hard. Vial doesn't fit the usually meek mold of female singer/songwriters. Her voice is somewhere between Sarah McLachlan and Anastacia - the harder R&B edge shows up from time to time, and Vial bares her soul on more than one occasion.
Rarely on "Cooler Heart" does Vial let the listener completely in. obviously relying on the hope that her lyrics are 'deeper' than average, she lilts around the beat and delivers lines like "In denial of the prospects / for this dejected life you lead / undying love to be your death knell / a token of my envy / you'll find a cooler heart" (from title track "Cooler Heart"), with a straight face.
"Crawl" and "Save Me" lead the album off with a tumbling straight-forward feel - all scorned love and blackened heart. "Tell Me" starts off in much the same way that Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do With It" did - this is actually a good thing, and "Tell Me" may be the best, pop-friendly tune on the album.
"Good Sex" is of course the track that first catches your eye when perusing the track listing. Unfortunately, the song isn't nearly as exciting as the title promises, and is perhaps the weakest song on the album - not even Vial's best impression of Jewel in the chorus can save it. Go figure. "Confident" has that late 1980's, early 1990's beat to it that's hard to deny. It's like something from that era's Madonna or Jody Watley - it makes up for the weak "Good Sex" that sent the album into a tailspin merely minutes before.
Then, 'Like a hooker hung out for the cannibals' [from "Trophy Wife re-mix"], Vial ends the album with three unimpressive remixes including reworkings of "Crawl" and "Good Sex". The reworkings have nothing new to offer and are purely filler to slam the door on truly mediocre output.
Vial has a great voice. She writes (perhaps) too cleverly for her own good, and as a result loses some of the audience she's aiming for most. My only guess to that audience's identity would be the pop music crowd and top forty/adult contemporary format, and as a result loses any resemblance to fun or reverie that she might have mustered with her natural talent and physical beauty.
Here's hoping she comes up with something a little more exciting next time.
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