Me So Chorney

Album Review

It's hard to understand why Chorney isn't a well-known national star. She has an uncanny ability to compose melodies that sound like songs you've known all your life, songs that resonate like the memories of things you've forgotten you've done. Her lyrics are just as good. Using simple turns of phrase, she can capture the complex emotions of people in love and imbue them with compassion and humor. On this early effort, her lyrics haven't yet been honed to the razor-sharp edge of her later albums, but everything that makes her music unique is already in place, including an expressive voice that makes the situations she sings about come to vibrant life. The songs on Me So Chorney are performed in stripped-down arrangements, most featuring only Chorney and her guitar, and as you might expect from the title of the album, the majority of the songs deal with love's physical side. Her vocal is full of yearning and ambivalent emotion on "Tonight Is Too Long" as she describes her temptation to cheat on an absent lover, without letting us know if she does or doesn't. She plays guitar with a Lain feel on "I'm Gonna Sleep with You," the tale of a one-night stand with an ex-lover, while "I'm Interested" is a straightforward song of seduction featuring one of Chorney's most sultry vocals. "Spartacus," the most sexually explicit song on the album, is presented in two versions, one club friendly with dub effects and zooming bass, and one just Chorney and guitar. The produced version is hot, but the acoustic take is even hotter, managing to be steamy and sexual without sounding lewd or pornographic. Chorney drops a little mix of world music and disco into the mix on "Come Along Song," a tune with a propulsive bassline, funky handclapping, and some nice conga fills. It's a cheery song of seduction made irresistible by her alluring delivery. "We Bless America" is a love song too, but of a different kind. It's a tribute to the lives lost on 9/11 and Chorney makes the scene come alive by concentrating on the small details of the aftermath and delivering then with an understated passion that makes the emotions she's expressing even more intense. ~ j. poet, Rovi