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Bre Loughlin
Modern American Photo Album
Anykind of Pretty Records
"I touch on touchy things," sings Bre Loughlin, "it brings what touching brings."
Although this may seem like a warning, it's really more of an invitation to join her—you've just got to be prepared to feel stuff. On her new album Modern American Photo Album, Seattle's Loughlin wants you to feel everything—every lovely memory, every painful goodbye, every stolen kiss that she ever gave back. She sings of Sedona, old love letters, wildfires, hospitals, stars and a girl with Bettie Page thighs and even though these aren't your memories, kid, Loughlin's generosity as a songwriter makes listening to her positively experiential. In other words, they're your memories now. The fetching and mighty-voiced Loughlin sings with such precision and poetic accuracy, her subjects' pain becomes truly palpable. For example, the narrator of the devastating acoustic number "Hospital" confesses, "Where do I go at night/To the hospital"--and while she conjures its dim corridors and dark, medicinal corners, she's humbled by her mortal powerlessness to help anybody there. And you are, too. Filled with idiosyncratic percussion ("Whale Song"), swaying pop ("Hold Aim Fire") and aching acoustic ballads ("Porcupine"), Modern American Photo Album is an album of tremendous feeling. Armed with the sultry power of The Motels' Martha Davis and the phrasing of both Robert and Elliot Smith, Loughlin is a smooth and assured singer, who, in spite of her influences, has her own inimitable and quirky charm. Elsewhere, "My Guitar" is a kinetic ode to the lasting relationship between a musician and their instrument; "Crazy Love" is a dose of brilliant new wave acoustica; the sonorous ripple of "Welcome To Hell" conjures the late Kirsty MacColl and "Enraged" is a spiky acoustic number that somehow brings to mind Jane's Addiction and Joni Mitchell. A star-making effort, indeed.
--Alex Green
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