Editorial Reviews Music Review:
Music Review
Eight Basque Melodies for Soprano & Orchestra
Girl [CD-single] [Enhanced] [Import]
Legendary Divas of Cuba [Original recording remastered]
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Last year's bittersweet return Almost Gone memorialized lost friends and family in profound fashion. The deaths of beat luminaries Ginsberg and Burroughs color parts of her seventh album, but overall Smith is back on the barricades and rocking alongside her Lenny Kaye-led band. "1959," a plea for Tibet, is the catchiest, timeliest song here, and, like "Don't Say Nothing," it merits at least a dash of commercial airplay. Ain't going to happen, of course, but Smith's wisdom, apocalyptic imagery and artful invention (viz. "Memento Mori") is manna to devotees. --Jeff Bateman