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Whistle Stopper - Watershed
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List Price: $18.98
Our Price: $9.77
Your Save: $ 9.21 ( 49% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Nonesuch
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0075597999082
Label: Nonesuch
Manufacturer: Nonesuch
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Nonesuch
Release Date: 2008-02-05
Studio: Nonesuch
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Another wonderful offering
Comment: Not much that this woman does is mediocre. This is another great album and she makes you think she's singing all about you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pouring it all out
Comment: For her first album of originals since 2000's Invincible Summer, kd lang hearkens back to all the music she's made in the last 25 years. There are touches of her Absolute Torch and Twang country brilliance, the snazzy chanteuse who blossomed on Ingénue and the lush, smokey voice that has carried across all her work from the beginning. It also marks her transition to a mature singer/songwriter.
"Watershed" may be comprised mostly of love songs, but they are subtle takes on the gift. "Coming Home" (the best song here) is exquisitely written; can you name any songwriters of late who can work a word like 'minutiae' into their lyrics? Didn't think so. The heavy handed Moon/June type of love songs are 100% absent from "Watershed," replaced by such delights as "Flame of The Uninspired" or "I Dream Of Spring." The songs are often underscored with gorgeous string charts. It's Lang's first attempt at self-production, and she acquits herself nicely.
Unfortunately, what keeps this album from a more inspiring rating is the fact that it never perks up past low-to-mid tempo. The biggest kicks come from the clever "Upstream," and the country growler that closes the CD, "Jealous Dog." "Dog" is the only song that breaks from the immaculate middle of the road sound. By just setting itself around Lang and her piano/banjo playing, it breaks the mold enough to be a standout. It's an issue that also haunted her prior Nonesuch CD, Hymns of the 49th Parallel, which bogged down under too many low-key songs.
While "Watershed" doesn't fail in its mission to soothe and relax, kd lang has shown multiple times that she is capable of delivering far more. This album is a pleasant, immaculately crafted work, but in the end, it's just immaculate craft. Lang has, in the past, produced art...and "Watershed" falls short of that mark.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good KD
Comment: Good record. Very KD. Nice to add something new to the music collection. Think I'll listen to it now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: gorgeous voice
Comment: I became a kd lang fan about 20 years ago when she was recording jazzy country western (I thought, stupid me, that she was from Austin TX...). This cd is like her 48th Parallel released about 5 years ago is not much at all like her twangy CW days. Instead, Watershed and 48th, really showcase her amazing vocal range--sultry, smooth, strong, soaring. This cd is well-worth the ticket price. That's she not from Austin really doesn't matter....
Customer Rating:
Summary: Drip, Drip
Comment: KD Lang's hypnotic, elegant voice feels squandered by uninspiring lyrics. Best used as a cure for insomnia.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Watershed is the first major project from celebrated Canadian chanteuse k.d. lang since 2004's Hymns of the 49th Parallel. Where Hymns explored the music of fellow Canadians such as Ron Sexsmith, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, Watershed represents the first set of original songs from lang in around eight years. Self-produced and arranged by musicians she has worked with a lot in the past, the most striking aspect of the album is its intimate, homely feel. Adding to the cozy ambience is the fact that Watershed brings most of lang's musical passions and influences--jazz, country, folk, bossa nova--under one roof, lending the project a dreamy, mellifluous coherence. But if the musical landscape is mellow and easy to traverse, Lang's lyrics can be less comfortable. Using her laid-back, often ethereal arrangements as sugar-candied coating for thornier topics, the singer serenades with stories of broken love, occasionally harsh self-analysis and the obligatory forays into existential angst. These contrastive elements only serve to make the album stronger, adding emotional weight to the airless arrangements of "Once in a While," and the delicate "Close Your Eyes," and conjuring up images of beauty on the string-laden "I Dream of Spring," and the wonderfully lazy "Sunday". Intelligent, mature and sophisticated, Watershed is the kind of perfect pop album it's difficult not to fall in love with immediately and forever. --Paul Sullivan
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