Search - Merrie Amsterburg :: Clementine & Other Stories

Giving classic American folk songs a fresh coat of paint

David Curry | Milford, MA | 06/15/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's been 6 years since Amsterburg's last album release, but worth the wait to finally hear her again. For those familiar with her earlier work on "Season of Rain" and "Little Steps", it will be a pleasure to know that Merrie still has her knack for delivering songs that are at once tinged with melancholy and with hope for the silver lining in each cloud. Her previous two albums shared the theme of love and loss, and while that theme continues, Merrie chose to draw her sources from traditional American folk classics, rather than her own personal stories. Despite being classics, the songs are nothing like what you heard in your childhood. Any kid knows the chorus to "Clementine", but only an adult could appreciate Merrie's musical interpretation that revives the darker tones that lend the song its haunting appeal. Her trademark child-like, delicate voice is a perfect complement to these old gems by contrasting their often grim tales. The instrumentation is an eclectic blend of the old (finger picked banjo) and the new (fuzzed-out beatbox rhythms). But through it all is a sense of longing, foreboding, ghosts and shadows flirting around the edges of the golden optimism of a younger unjaded America. The track "Simple Gifts" reels with the joyful bliss of a spinning dervish, while "Johnny Comes Marching Home" overflows with bitter irony by pitting naive WWI-era patriotism against the modern reality that Johnny really comes home in a bodybag. All in all, the album is both familiar and vaguely strange, but Merrie's beautiful voice and talents at arranging hold it all together and make it a memorable collection."