Album Review by EDF
Sometimes it’s hard to guess what a group are about on just the first few seconds of their album and this can be said about the US independent group Groovelily, featuring violinist / singer / founder member Valerie Vigoda, Brendan Milburn on keyboards / vocals and Gene Lewin on drums. Mixing rock, a touch of folk and vocal harmonies, you can feel that this album was made with a lot of effort and the results just shine through.
REWIND starts the album off, wanting to send us back in time when things were good. LIVE THROUGH THIS follows the same scenario but with Valerie on vocals, there is a sense of hope that she will come out of her dilemma all the better. IT’S ALL RIGHT is a misleading title as “now there’s only a wall, where there used to be a door, but it’s all right”, which is basically making good out of a bad situation. APOCALYPTIC LOVE SONG emphases that being together with the person you love, there is nothing that can stop that moment of love not even the end of the world. Love versus an apocalyptic end finds love winning out, convincingly expressed by Valerie’s emotionally diva like vocals, which leads into the POST APOCALYPTIC instrumental where Valerie’s violin solo battles against Milburn’s chaotic piano piece.
THIS IS GOING TO STOP is every lover’s fears that the love between two people will end some day. DIVA GIRL is a very tongue in cheek look at how female teeny pop singers affect the older male fan to the point where he embarrassingly notes that at her concerts he “hope you won’t notice baby, that I’m almost twice your age”. Milburn’s NO ROOM IN YOUR BAG, dedicated to his mother, can be compared to Billy Joel’s SCENES FROM AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT for both the lyrics and scale of the story itself. Valerie’s brave OPEN LETTER TO MADONNA is just that, asking, “How is the view up there at the top? And now that you’re big can you relax?”
CAN YOU BELIEVE? is a mixture of early Billy Joel meets Steely Dan. HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY is Milburn’s jealous, sarcastic observation to how he greets news of a friend’s good fortune. ALL I WANT IS WHAT I DO NOT HAVE starts with a stripped down sound of just basic rhythmic drums and minimalist keyboards which then crashes to a climatic instrumental conclusion. Groovelily’s album is both musically professional and compelling so it is a mystery why they haven’t been picked up by a major record label. Yet again, an independent artist has shown just how shallow the majors are.
