Reviewing the latest Her Love Filled the Room album, Love, Hate & Dignity, was difficult - it has forced me to consider closely my role as a reviewer. Is it to recommend something everyone will like? If so, go out and buy Michael Jackson's Thriller - you won't be disappointed. In so few words, Her Love Filled the Room is a creature too strange and beautiful in its apparent simplicity to have wide appeal.
This album eludes easy classification. Perhaps singer/songwriter Frances Francis's own description of the album as "a southern Appalachian post-shoe gazing project" best illustrates its complexity.
Don't be fooled by the simple harmonies - Her Love Filled the Room makes a complex musical statement. Francis plays guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello, banjo and accordion with equal virtuosity, which makes her songwriting skills apparent in songs such as "Angel." Lyrics such as "The silence she made had wings" are evocative and strange and draw much of their emotion from the sad, distant harmonies of the music. One rarely finds such a combination of poet and musician in one individual - the comparison that comes to mind is with Nick Drake.
With Love, Hate & Dignity, Francis achieves an emotional immediacy that is rare in music. Many of the lyrics seem to draw on personal experiences, making the album a very personal statement. Indeed, one almost begins to feel intrusive at certain moments. One can only assume "Song for Dewey" was written for Francis' own daddy and in "Tied Around" - the melody adopted from a Harry Chapin song - Francis could only be drawing from her own life's experience. It is this appropriation of personal experience that gives this album its raw, immediate quality.
Long drives by yourself . watching the rain run down a pane of glass ... the moment just before you wake up when you realize you are dreaming - this album evokes the most personal moments and conveys emotions we seem to have a hard time expressing. Perhaps best listened to in what I like to call my "Leonard Cohen" mood, this intensely personal expression approximates beautifully the mean between poetry and music, reminding me once again how closely related they are.
So if you're looking for something to tap your foot to, go and listen to Michael Jackson. As for me, I think I'll go and brood on the complex emotional statement that is Her Love Filled the Room.
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