Love Goes On

Album Review

Fiddler and singer Andrea Zonn has been doing session work in Nashville since she was 16, and is currently a mainstay of Vince Gill's band. Her first solo album nicely showcases her sweet and mellow voice, while mainly relegating her fiddling to the background (and augmenting it with viola and "chin cello"). She's chosen mostly slow and mid-tempo songs for Love Goes On, which is kind of too bad — there's nothing wrong with slow songs per se, but the one nagging disappointment throughout the album is its lack of energy. Her Cajun-flavored cover of Beth Nielsen Chapman's "Heads Up for the Wrecking Ball" has a certain amount of oomph, and she applies a graceful Celtic twist to the whimsical flavor of the old Split Enz song "Weather With You." And when Vince Gill steps in to contribute harmony vocals on the gorgeous "In My Own Backyard," the effect is electric even though the song itself is languorous — it brings to mind some of Richard & Linda Thompson's more heartbreaking songs. But her version of Neil Finn's "Better Be Home Soon" lacks the edge of romantic threat that gave the Crowded House version its subtle bite, and "Another Day" is just as mundane as its title. Everything else slips by pleasantly enough, without really making you sit up and take notice. This is a promising debut overall, but not an unqualified triumph.