“Guts” is why I like the latest offering from Julia Grace. As a fan of hers from back in her days as lead singer of the electronica band Elevator I was eager to hear her second solo album, Beautiful Survivor…
Julia Grace – Beautiful Survivor – Album Review
I am no music aficionado – so definitely don’t go asking me for my opinions on musical talent or composition. I can’t sit and listen to an album and liken their musical styling to a list of artists. In fact I can give you very little advice, direction or wisdom at all when it comes to an album review. But lyrics are my thing – I like a solid set of lyrics that you can hang your hat off. And I like a good old sing-along – songs that demand you to march along with them. And, like the best of us, to go off my gut.
And “guts” is why I like the latest offering from Julia Grace, ‘Beautiful Survivor’.
As a fan of hers from back in her days as lead singer of the electronica band Elevator I was eager to hear her second solo album. And it was everything I had expected from a woman with “guts.” The album is open and honest, a wide spread offering that invites you into life in all its highs and lows, disappointments, and triumphs. From the opening refrains of ‘Thanks to You” to the final refrains of her cover of the Academy Award winning song “Falling Slowly” there is a beautiful vulnerability that draws you in and holds your attention.
There are some definitive highlights.
The title song “Beautiful survivor” has that elusive quality of popular songs, that ability to make you think you already know it and have you singing along the very first time you listen to it. And this is a quality that is echoed in the song “Perfect Reason” – a song that made my toes curl with pleasure and, like the lyrics, may just give me “the perfect reason to stay home instead”.
And while it might seem unusual to end an album with another artists cover – “Falling Slowly” is the perfect ending to this melancholy celebration of the human spirit.
By Athalia Bond, August 2010.
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