Lynn Miles – Night In A Strange Town

It’s too bad singer-songwriter Lynn Miles doesn’t sing more honky-tonk. She proved she does that well when she teamed up with fellow Canadian Fred Eaglesmith on his last album for “Drinking Too Much”. But on Night In A Strange Town, her second Philo release, she sinks into the sameness of generic singer-songwriter material, offering up 11 songs with few distinguishing characteristics lyrically, musically or vocally.

Miles describes unrequited love insipidly on “Wrong” (“Love is not a lie/Love is not a game/Love doesn’t cheat/And it doesn’t lay blame”); it doesn’t help that her vocals have an easy-listening quality. Even when she sings about something grittier, such as the ugliness of life in Los Angeles on “Sunset Blvd.”, the lyrics are obvious (“You cannot be too rich/You cannot be too thin”), and her voice is too pretty to pull off the cynical urban hipster pose.

One of the disc’s few bright spots, “Sacre Coeur”, stretches Miles’ vocal range pleasantly and weaves in the pedal steel and mandolin of Greg Leisz. While the lyrics are still a bit trite (“Paris is a lonely town/Especially when the sun goes down”) the melody and Miles’ voice are strong enough to save it.