• Shannon Stephens – How I Got Away

    Artist:
    Album:
    Peter Blackstock Posted On January 1, 2000
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    Short, but sweet — yet not too sweet. The debut disc from Shannon Stephens clocks in at just over 15 minutes, its five songs sketching minimalist vignettes of a love dangling by a thread.

    “The Way Relationships End Up” finds Stephens pondering a rare moment of power over her boyfriend as he sleeps in the passenger seat while she drives. Delivered solo acoustic, it’s a haunting, attention-grabbing song with which to open the record. “Catch The Morning Line” details the desire to flee from a bad situation; a soft-touch backing band makes it the most accessible track here. “Air So Thick” and “Months” fall off a bit from that auspicious beginning, but Stephens finishes strong on “You Can’t Be Happy Without Me”, a gentle banjo riff tumbling alongside her delicate piano-and-guitar arrangement.

    Stephens’ sensibility falls somewhere between classic singer-songwriters of the late ’60s and the lo-fi troubadours of the ’90s: She’s Judy Collins filtered through Julie Doiron, perhaps a middle ground amid Joni Mitchell and Lois. Wherever that territory may be precisely, Stephens sounds effortlessly comfortable there.




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