This Riot Life

Album Review

Veda Hille combines elements of singer/songwriter rock, pop, the theater, and classical music on her thirteenth album, This Riot Life. Some of the tracks are based on hymns, and one ("The Moon") on writing by Percy Byshe Shelley, though much of the material is Hille's own. Though the settings are unusual, much of it does sound like confessional singer/songwriter music at the core, though of a somewhat more abstract/impressionistic flavor than most of that genre. Her vocals make adroit upper-register shifts, and the melodies and the oft-orchestral arrangements change unpredictably, traits she shares with fellow Canadian songwriters Jane Siberry and Joni Mitchell. The lyrics often allude to a romantic world view (and a specific romance in "Sleepers"), but there are also musings upon isolation, none of it done with overt sentimentality. It's a difficult album to peg, being too arty for the usual singer/songwriter audience in both music and (to a lesser extent) words, and too eclectic in its stylistic breadth for many pop listeners.