There’s trouble in Paradise and it has nothing to do with PEI’s Jenn Grant wanting to shed the limitations of a music persona knee deep in the trappings of today’s crowded acoustic music scene; Bon Iver did just that quite successfully last year with his ground breaking 22, A Million album. Nor is there anything wrong with husband Daniel Ledwell’s layers of lush electro dreampop. The problem lies squarely with the songs themselves. Rather than producing a wealth of music rich with ebb and flow, Paradise, Grant’s 6th album in a decade, yields 11 static tracks which simply fail to bloom in any sort of way. After a strong start with the Art Of Noise “Moments In Love” sounding title track Grant mumbles her way through the remainder of the album, her lazy diction making it difficult to connect in any meaningful way to the lyrics which are, for the most part, indecipherable without the help of a lyric sheet. With vocal stylings reminiscent of Florence and the Machine and classic Jane Sibery, Grant’s Paradise is one step closer to embracing the promise of the album’s beautifully silhouetted chanteuse inspired cover art, she’s just not there yet.
Rating: 6/10
