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ALL OF OUR NAMES
(Zoë/Rounder)
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On her second solo album, Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer crosses from inviting melancholia into outright depression. The latter can be good for inspiration, but in this case there’s far too little of the pop sparkle that made her label debut, 2000’s You Were Here, such a grabber. The long wait between albums would suggest a spell of writer’s block, and that suspicion is borne out by the material: isolation and emptiness are the recurring themes, with two songs referring to being left alone on the holidays. And the music proves too low-key to provide the catharsis she’s after, particularly in the album’s relentlessly slow second half. Her home-studio recording adds to the flatness of the sound: you can almost guess when the Portishead rhythm loops are going to show up. And her flair for melody, which was evident both on the debut and in her Squeeze-like former band Weeping Tile, is absent here. The tune of "Tether" bears a nagging — and I do mean nagging — resemblance to Air Supply’s best-forgotten "All Out of Love." Harmer’s vocals still have a charming vulnerability that makes up for some of the rough spots. And the song being worked to adult-contemporary radio, "Almost," is terrific; but it also sounds like a throwback to the debut — both for its post-break-up lyric and its more aggressive, guitar-driven sound. What’s more telling is that the disc opens and closes with songs about sleep, which is where even fans of her previous work may wind up.
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